


When She Was Special

by Constantius



Series: Special [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-09-19 06:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 39,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20326927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Constantius/pseuds/Constantius
Summary: After El loses her powers and moves away, she ends her relationship with Mike.  But when a new threat from the Upside Down emerges, Mike is determined to fight at her side whether she loves him or not.  Mike/Eleven with Dustin and Steve, plus an appearance by a season 2 character whose story arc didn't really feel complete.  Angst in the first half, fluff in the second, action, heroics, a road trip, a showdown and Mileven.





	1. The Letter

**Hawkins, Indiana - The Woods**   
**Friday, December 13, 1985**

Mike Wheeler counted days. 

He walked in the woods, the ground bathed in fallen snow and bright sunshine, and he let the numbers spill through his mind. He was good with numbers and it soothed him to count things. 

\-- Days since he met Eleven in the woods behind Will’s house: 767 

\-- Days since he kissed Eleven for the first time: 762 

\-- Days she was missing after he kissed her: 353

\-- Days he tried to call her while she was gone: 353

\-- Days since he kissed Eleven the second time: 363 

\-- Days since Eleven lost her powers: 162

\-- Days since she moved away: 74

\-- Days since she stopped talking to him: 15 

\-- Days since her letter: 1

Some of those things hurt but the last two hurt the most. 

He turned the letter over in his hands and fought the urge to pull it from the envelope and read it again. It was short. He knew what it said. 

Instead he looked at his name and address on the front of the envelope, scrawled in Eleven’s awkward handwriting. She hadn’t spent years in grade school practicing her penmanship like other children. Mike ran his finger over the blue ink of his name. He pictured her writing it. 

The return address was in Bath, Maine. Mike sighed.

Snow crunched off to his left. It was Dustin.

“Dude, what are you doing out here?” the curly-haired boy asked Mike. Dustin had cleidocranial dysplasia and spoke with a slight lisp. Mike had known him so long he hardly noticed it. 

Mike shrugged. “Just walking. Thinking.”

“Thinking about what? As if I have to ask.”

“Come on, I could be thinking about a lot of things,” Mike objected. 

Now it was Dustin’s turn to shrug. “You could be. But you aren’t.”

“How did you know I was out here, anyway?” Mike looked around at the bare trees, their branches frosted with snow, and the ruins nearby of Castle Byers. There was nothing left of his friend Will’s childhood fort but a pile of old boards and the rotted scrap of a flag. Mike could just see the Byers’ old house through a gap in the trees.

“There’s only a few places you go these days, dude.” Dustin’s voice was soft, taking the rebuke out of the words.

Mike scuffed the snow with his foot. “I guess.”

“You’ll see her again,” Dustin told him. “She’ll be here for Christmas, right?”

Mike shrugged again. He could feel sorrow bubbling up in his chest. He wasn’t going to cry in front of Dustin though. He was fifteen after all.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “I don’t know if I’ll see her.” He tapped the letter in his hand.

“Is that from her?”

“Yes.” Mike tried to keep his voice casual, but it came out as a rasping sigh. “Yes, it’s from her.” 

He wiped the tear from his cheek angrily. 

Dustin acted like he didn’t see. He was a good friend that way, Mike thought. He was Mike’s best friend now. Lucas was always with Max these days, and Will had moved away, and El… well, there was the letter, wasn’t there? 

Dustin held out his hand. Mike pulled the letter from the envelope and passed it to his friend. It didn’t take Dustin long to read it.

“Damn, dude,” the curly-haired boy said, his voice tinged with sadness.

Mike nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He took the letter back, glancing at it one more time before putting it in the envelope and tucking it away. There were only a few lines. He knew them by heart now.

_ Mike,_

_ Please don’t write me anymore._

_ I’m sorry._

_ El_


	2. The Mailbox

**Bath, Maine - The Byers House**  
**Six Days Earlier - Saturday, December 7, 1985**

Eleven stared at the sheet of paper on the desk in front of her. She’d managed one word so far.

_ Mike,_

She wiped her eyes carefully with a tissue. She’d tried to write the letter earlier in the day and cried on it and smudged the ink. She knew her handwriting was hard to read even without smudges, so she’d thrown that letter away. 

Eleven wished she had prettier handwriting, like her brother Will’s. His penmanship made her think of flowers somehow, all curly and flowing. Wouldn’t it be great if people thought of flowers when they saw her letters, too? Will told her she just needed more practice, but she didn’t think she was getting any better.

She’d written Mike about it once, afraid that maybe he couldn’t actually read her letters and apologizing and promising to get better. He’d written back that of course he could read them and her penmanship was adorable.

He was always saying things like that. He was the most wonderful boy in the world.

A big teardrop landed right in the middle of his name and smeared it. She sniffed and wiped her eyes and crumpled the paper and threw it away. She got another piece of paper and started again. 

* * *

In the end it took six tries, but she finally got the letter right, without any smudges. 

She’d written much longer letters than this one of course, pages and pages, line after line until her hand hurt, because there was so much that she wanted to tell Mike. As time went on and she realized the truth, her letters shrank from ten pages to four pages and then to one side of one page. This was the shortest one. It was the hardest to write.

She looked at it one more time, sniffling. 

_Don’t write me anymore_, it had said once. That had seemed very abrupt, almost mean. She didn’t want to be mean. Mike deserved so much more than that. So she’d carefully added _Please_ at the front and that was better, because it was polite. Mike would appreciate that, she hoped.

Even then the letter didn’t seem quite right. Reading it, Eleven was afraid it sounded… angry. She didn’t want him to think she was angry or that she blamed him for anything. She didn’t blame him. It wasn’t his fault at all.

She gnawed the end of her pen and then she wrote, _I’m sorry_. That was good. That was what you said when it was your fault. Mike and Lucas had taught her that, long ago. 

Eleven signed the letter, leaning back because she’d started crying again and she didn’t want to smear the ink. She folded it into an envelope and carefully printed out Mike’s name and address.

Mike. Her beautiful, brilliant boy. But not hers anymore.

She opened the desk drawer and rummaged through pens and paper clips until she found the stamps. The Byers didn’t have much money, so she wasn’t allowed to make long distance phone calls, but as a compromise her mother let her use as many stamps as she wanted. El picked out a green eagle marked “22¢” and pressed it on the envelope.

She passed her mother in the living room. Not her birth mother of course – not Terry Ives – but her real mother, Joyce Byers. El liked Joyce a lot. She had been so generous and kind after the death of El’s father. Joyce had welcomed El into her family and her home and her heart.

“Everything okay, sweetie?” her mother asked carefully. Joyce knew there had been trouble in school this week. 

“Yes,” El lied, “Okay.” She didn’t like lying to Joyce, but it was allowed. Joyce was her mother, not her friend.

El put her coat on, a dark, too-big flannel jacket that she’d got from her father. She pushed open the front door and walked through new-fallen snow to the mailbox. She looked at the letter in her hands again – the letter that would close off the best part of her life.

She knew Mike Wheeler had loved her once. There was no doubt in her mind. The way he talked to her, the things he did for her. The way he kissed her. The most wonderful boy in the world had loved her once and no one could ever take that away. 

But that was a long time ago. 

That was when she was special.

Once upon a time, she could step into her own mind. Papa had taught her how. Inside she’d see floating strands of blue and pink, yellow and red, orange and green, that linked her to the world around her. No one else had those, Papa had told her. No one else had so many different strands that were so very strong. She could pull on those strands – sometimes a gentle tug, sometimes a harsh yank – and she could twist them into a new reality. 

But on the Fourth of July, the Mind Flayer’s monster bit her and everything changed.

El quickly checked to see that no one was around. She stepped into her mind, looking – hoping – for the strands that would let her open the mailbox door with just her thoughts.

But where the strands had floated once, there was a flat, gray, featureless wall. It was always there now. It stretched in all directions and there seemed to be no way around it. When she touched it, her hands slid away, unable to find purchase on the frictionless surface. She stared at the mailbox and slammed her fists against the wall, screaming inside her head. 

Nothing. The mailbox door stayed closed. El opened it with her hand, put the letter inside, closed it. She lifted the red flag on the side of the mailbox the way Joyce had taught her, so the postman would know to stop.

She turned back toward the front door but wavered for a moment. She looked at the mailbox, then shook her head. 

“Goodbye, Mike,” Eleven said and then she went inside.


	3. The Gate

**Hawkins, Indiana - Hawkins National Laboratory**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

The next afternoon, Dustin found Mike Wheeler at the Laboratory.The government facility was supposed to be off-limits, locked away behind fencing and razor-wire, but there was a hole in the chain-link that no one had ever bothered to fix.Hopper had made the hole, Dustin recalled, one of those times that he was saving the world.

It was easy to follow Mike’s tracks in the snow to the building’s south entrance.Once you got past the fence, there wasn’t much in the way of security and most of the doors were unlocked.The government had pretty much cleaned the place out after the thing with the Russians. They weren’t going to waste budget dollars guarding an empty building.

The government had also killed most of the power and the elevators didn’t work.Dustin walked through the debris-strewn lobby into the east stairwell, then took concrete steps down to the third level basement.Mike always went to the third level basement.Dustin found his friend sitting on a rusted metal desk outside the gateway room, thinking deep thoughts in the dim glow of the emergency lights.

Mike looked over his shoulder, tense, then relaxed when he saw Dustin’s green and yellow Camp Know-Where hat.Dustin couldn’t fault Mike for being touchy.The lab was still creepy after all this time, and Dustin knew he’d jump out of his skin if he heard any strange noises.

“Hey dude,” Dustin called.

Mike cleared his throat, as he did when he needed to gather his thoughts.“Hey Dustin.How did you know to find me here?”

Dustin sighed.The Mind Flayer had destroyed Hopper’s cabin.The gymnasium where they held the Snow Ball was locked on weekends.The Byers house was up for sale, the Feds had Starcourt in lockdown, and Mike freaked out every time he saw the quarry.That left two places Mike would go to remind himself of Eleven: the woods behind the Byers house and this laboratory.

“Lucky guess,” Dustin said.He sat next to Mike on the desk.For a moment the boys didn’t talk.

“So what’s up, dude?” Dustin finally ventured.“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve just been thinking,” said Mike.

“About the letter?”

“Yeah,” said Mike.“The letter.Eleven.All of it.”

“What happened?I thought you guys were good.I thought you were in love.”

Mike stared at the floor.“I thought so too.I guess I was wrong.”He took a deep breath.“It’s not like I couldn’t see it coming.”

Dustin frowned.Mike could be hard on himself.“What do you mean?”

“We used to write each other, you know?”Mike waved his hands aimlessly.“After she moved away.All the time – these really long letters.El would send me, like, ten pages, front and back.At first she had a million things to say.And I kept writing but after a while I noticed her letters were getting shorter.Mine were always long, but hers got shorter and shorter.And one day I realized the conversation was basically one way.”He shook his head.

“Did you try talking to her?” asked Dustin.It seemed obvious, but smart as Mike was, Dustin knew he had a knack for missing the obvious.

“I’d call her on the phone once a week.It’s long distance, so we couldn’t talk long, but I’d always call her.”

“She never called you?”

“It’s _long distance_,” Mike emphasized.“And the Byers aren’t, you know…”He rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal sign for money.

“Ah, right,” Dustin said.

“Then we were supposed to go to Maine for Thanksgiving and I was going to see her, but then Nana got sick and we had to stay here…”

“That’s right,” Dustin breathed.“Did El think you were lying again about your grandma being sick?”

“No.I don’t know.Our whole family stayed in Hawkins, right, so it couldn’t have been a lie.But it didn’t help.”Mike sighed.“After that she stopped taking my calls.She was always out, or too busy to talk, or whatever.” 

“That sucks, dude,” Dustin told him.Sometimes there was nothing else to say.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed.“Yeah, that sucks.”

The boys got up from the desk and walked around the floor.They looked into empty rooms, opened cabinets, kicked at broken tiles.They didn’t talk much.Eventually they’d made a full circle and were back at the gateway antechamber.Mike sat on the desk and Dustin leaned against the wall.

“It seems weird, you know?” said Dustin.

“What do you mean?” his friend asked.

“Well, long distance relationships are tough – don’t get me started on Suzie and me – but you and El had a great thing.She loved you, I’m sure of it.It seems strange that she’d end it for basically no reason.”

Mike could only nod and shrug helplessly.

Dustin thought for a bit.“So, have you and El, you know…”He made a gesture.

“What?” asked Mike.

“You know.”Dustin made the gesture again.

Mike’s mouth dropped as he realized what Dustin was suggesting.“What?No!We’re only fifteen!We’re not ready for that!Why would you even ask that?”

Dustin shrugged.“Well, I was just thinking, you know, maybe you weren’t any good and that’s why she broke up with you.”

“What?”Mike’s voice climbed into higher, previously unexplored octaves.“Why wouldn’t I be any good?”

“Easy, dude,” Dustin said, making calming gestures.“I’m not saying that.I’m just brainstorming.You know, throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.”

It was clear from Mike’s face that he was still upset and Dustin searched for the right thing to say.“I’m sure you’d be really good,” Dustin assured his friend.

“What?” the black-haired boy shrieked.If Mike’s voice got any higher, he’d start making noises that only dogs could hear.

“I mean you’re really… considerate.You’d probably be, you know, thinking a lot about _her_ needs.”Dustin paused.“You’re a giver.”

Mike stared at him, horrified, and Dustin had to admit the conversation had taken a pretty weird turn.

Red-faced, the two boys fell into silence, staring at the floor.After a while, Mike spoke.

“So, have you and Suzie, you know…”He made a gesture.

Dustin snorted.“She’s a Mormon, dude.I think I have to marry her first.”He frowned, considering.“But I think I get to marry other girls too.You know, if I want.”

“I don’t think the Mormons do that anymore,” Mike said.

Dustin waved his hand.“It doesn’t matter – her parents would never let her marry me.”He sighed.“It’s a shame.She’s really nice.And super cute.”

“She seems nice,” Mike said.He grinned.“Maybe one day we’ll actually get to see her.”

Dustin snorted again and tossed his hat at Mike.“Don’t give me a hard time.Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” Mike said, “before we go, I just want to...”He gestured toward the heavy white doors that led to the gate chamber.

Dustin swallowed hard but agreed.He didn’t like the gate chamber, but if it helped Mike work through his Eleven issues, then so be it.

They approached the doors and suddenly Mike stopped.“Have you been here without me?” he asked.

The curly-haired boy shot him an incredulous look.“Are you out of your mind?”

“Well, this door is ajar.“

Mike was right.Where the two double doors were usually securely closed, one now rested partly open.Dustin felt fingers of fear play down his spine and squirm into his stomach.

“We have to check it out,” Mike said, his voice soft and filled with tension.

“Why do we have to do that?” Dustin asked.Quite reasonably, he thought.

Mike wasn’t listening. He reached out and pulled the door wider.They peeked inside.

“Oh shit,” Dustin said.


	4. The Lighthouse

**Bath, Maine - Maine Maritime Museum**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

That day the Byers took Eleven to the maritime museum, the one just down the shore from the Bath Iron Works, where people still made the great ships.The visit was a treat the Byers wanted to give to her, as comfort after hard times.

For a little while, Eleven forgot about school and solitude and the letter she’d mailed a week ago to the beautiful boy who couldn’t love her anymore.She walked the museum, fascinated by the ships and the stories of the people who made them, the people who spent their lives on the water.

She climbed to the second floor of the lighthouse exhibit and sat in a darkened room. Time-lapse images played on screens all around her.It was as if she was looking out of a real lighthouse on a rocky cape, day after day and night after night, the sun and the moon and the stars rising and setting over the glittering sea.

In the darkness she couldn’t help slipping back into memories.

* * *

**Maine Coastline**   
**Eight Weeks Earlier - Friday, October 18, 1985**

Eleven hadn’t expected to like the water.

Water meant the Bathtub, the place Papa made her go to enter the Void.It meant cold rain on a dark night, running from monsters and bad men.It meant the blackness at the bottom of the quarry, where Mike would have died if she hadn’t caught him.

When she saw the ocean that October it was a revelation.She hadn’t realized there could be so much water. 

It was a gift to see the waves, the way they started deep green and then turned transparent and almost glowing when they reached the shore.As the Byers drove on the coast to their new home in Bath, El pressed her face to the window, watching the shore, the breakers, the foaming curls and silver flickering of the sea. 

Whenever they stopped, she walked the beaches, dancing between sand and rocks, and marveling at the purple sea urchins in the tidal pools.

The ships made her cry, the first happy tears she’d had since leaving Hawkins.There were little sloops with white sails, skating on silver waves.There were big black tankers, larger even then the Lab building, creating great wakes behind them on the open ocean. 

In Portland, the harbor was a fantasy of masts and canvas.

“Does Mike know about this?About the ocean?” she asked Will.Mike was so smart and he seemed to know almost everything, but Indiana was far away and maybe he’d never realized there could be a place like this.

“I think so,” Will told her, smiling.“Maybe not first-hand though.”

El nodded.“I’ll show it to him.He’ll love it.”

* * *

**Bath, Maine - Morse High School**  
**Five Weeks Earlier - Thursday, November 7, 1985**

After school, Eleven sat on the floor outside Mrs. Shackley’s office.El flipped through her science book, looking at the diagrams and occasionally pronouncing a word, her lips moving as she sounded out the letters the way her father had taught her. 

Her mother was inside the office, speaking with the counselor.They’d closed the door, but not all the way, and Eleven could hear them.They’d talked for a while now and Eleven could tell her mother was getting angry.

“Jane’s a good girl, Mrs. Byers, and we’re very pleased to have her,” Mrs. Shackley repeated.“But she seems to be well behind her age group in a number of ways.Reading, writing, mathematics…She struggles in class…”

“Well you’ll have to do better then, won’t you?” Joyce snapped.“You’ll have to help her.”

“Mrs. Byers, I’m sure the recent adoption and the separation from her previous family haven’t been easy on Jane.These things can set a child back.I’d like you to consider…” the counselor paused.“We have a school in the district – it’s a little farther away – that specializes in children that are… slower in developing their capability.”

There was a bang, a hand slamming down on the table.“What are you saying?She’s not _stupid_,” Joyce hissed.“She’s _smart_.She’s smarter than me and she’s smarter than you!”

“Mrs. Byers…” the counselor said.

“No!She doesn’t need some special school!She just needs a little help – from you!So she can catch up!” 

“Mrs. Byers,” the counselor said again, “I know this is an emotional topic.Please just consider…”

“No!” Joyce shouted and the office door jerked open.“Do your job!”Joyce yelled at the counselor and then she held out her hand to Eleven.“Come on honey, we’re going home.” 

El gathered up her books, took her mother’s hand and got to her feet.Joyce looked angrily back at the counselor’s office as she stormed down the hall.

Joyce stopped when they reached the parking lot.She turned to El and hugged her hard.“It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” Joyce said.

“Okay,” said El.

Her mother stepped back and brushed at Eleven’s unruly curls.El could see a contorted smile on her mother’s face, as Joyce tried to cheer her daughter up while fighting tears.

“It’s not your fault, sweetie,” her mother whispered.“You’re so smart.It’s just… it’s not your fault that they kept you locked in that lab for twelve—” Joyce’s voice broke. 

El stepped forward and hugged her mother against her.“It’s going to be okay,” she told Joyce.What else was there to say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> El of course is extremely bright, but spending twelve years of your life being experimented on in a lab and then the next year virtually alone in Hopper’s cabin is going to make school a challenge. Realistically (if the word can be applied to Stranger Things), El basically has the academic and social experience of a second grader and she’s been suddenly thrust into high school. That’s going to be tough on a kid, especially when Hopper and Mike and the Party aren’t around to support her.
> 
> Things will get better for her though, because El is a hero and overcoming adversity is what heroes do.


	5. The Footprints

**Hawkins, Indiana - Hawkins National Laboratory**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

Mike and Dustin stared into the darkened room.Light filtered in from the doorway, dimly illuminating the wreckage of consoles and desks. At the end of the room, the Gate to the Upside Down glowed faintly, a sliver of orange and red like the embers of a dying fire.

The seal, a great plug of concrete and steel the government had placed over the gate scar, was shattered.Blackened chunks of it littered the floor.

When the government emptied the Lab in July, Dr. Owens had assured them that the threat was gone._Nothing can get through that barrier_, he’d said._If the Russians or anyone else want to tear it down, it would take huge pieces of industrial equipment.We’d see ‘em, and we’d catch ‘em.The Upside Down is out of business for good.In Hawkins, anyway._

Apparently that hadn’t worked out so well.

The boys didn’t see anything moving.There was nothing but the faint puffs of their breath in the cold air.

“We have to check it out,” said Mike.

“No. No, we don’t,” said Dustin.“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Dustin…” Mike began, but his friend stopped him.

“Listen to me, Mike.I know you’re a smart guy.I’ve seen your GPA.And you’re smart enough to know that if you see mysterious shit in a darkened room, you don’t go check it out. You run the other way.”

“Dustin…” Mike said.

“No!” Dustin insisted.“Mike, come on.You’ve seen tons of horror movies, you know the rules.If someone’s missing, don’t go looking for them.Get out of there!Did you hear a strange noise?Don’t go see what it is.Get out of there!” 

“Dustin…” Mike said.

“And don’t forget, if you get away from the bad guy, don’t go back and try to save people, Mike.Run for it!Going back puts you on the death list!”Dustin pointed at him urgently.“Think about it.Remember the head chef guy from _The Shining_?Dead!”

“And we’re the head chef guy in this scenario?” Mike asked through gritted teeth.

“No! We’re the stupid teens who saw mysterious shit and got killed when they went to investigate!” Dustin hissed. “Geez, haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Dustin,” Mike said firmly. “This isn’t a horror movie.This is for real.If the Gate is open, El could be in danger.”

_Didn’t she dump you?_ Dustin wanted to shout. Instead he groaned, knowing it was impossible to argue with Mike once he entered Eleven’s-in-danger mode. “If the Gate is open, _we_ could be in danger,” Dustin snapped.“But fine, let’s go check it out. And if the Mind Flayer kills me in there, they’re going to find my corpse giving you a big middle finger.”

Mike closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.“Noted,” he said at last.He took a deep breath.“Come on, let’s see what’s going on.”

They crept inside, tiptoeing away from the comforting light of the open door into the darkness of the room.Dustin cringed at every noise and his heart pounded like a Metallica bass drum.It was almost a relief when they reached the glow of the Gate.

“Look at those scorch marks on the rubble,” Mike whispered.

Dustin peered closely.They were on the _inside_ of the seal.

“That can’t be good,” he muttered.

The boys looked around again, ears straining for any sound.Nothing.They turned their attention to the Gate.

“That’s strange,” Dustin whispered, “it kind of looks like it’s…”

“Closing,” Mike finished for him.

The top half of the strange portal to another dimension was black and scarred, like a fully formed scab growing over the cracks in the wall.Lower down, red and orange light glowed through a glistening membrane, but black tendrils stretched across the thin opening.It was as though the Gate was slowly stitching itself shut.

“What do you think it means?” Dustin asked.

Mike shook his head.“I don’t know.It’s almost like it was opened, but maybe only for a little while.And now it’s closing itself.”

“Why would that happen?” Dustin wondered, fear in his voice. “Do you... do you think something came through?”

Mike groped for a less ominous explanation. “Maybe it was just random, a fluctuation in the magnetic field or something.A burst that destroyed the seal.”

“No, Mike,” Dustin gasped, pointing.“Something came through.”

In the dim light of the Gate, the boys could just make out a long, distorted footprint in the ash and dirt on the floor.No human could have made that print.

“That’s from a demogorgon,” Mike breathed.

“Oh man,” Dustin whispered.The boys stared into the darkness.“Do you think it’s still here?” Dustin asked.

Mike swallowed hard. “If it was, we’d probably be dead by now, right?”

Dustin laughed grimly.“Well, thanks Mike.You can just rock me to sleep tonight.”

“Wherever it is, it’s not alone.”Now it was Mike’s turn to point out a set of footprints. These were smaller, something four-legged.

“A demodog,” Dustin said.“Shit. A demodog and a demogorgon passed through the Gate.”He looked fearfully around the room.“Do you think they’re just looking to cause some random mayhem or is it the start of another invasion?”

Mike looked thoughtfully at the footprints and then at the glowing portal.“I don’t think it’s random.It was only random the first time, when El accidentally opened the Gate.Ever since then, the Mind Flayer has always had a plan.”

He pushed his long, shaggy hair back as he thought some more.“And I don’t think it’s an invasion.That would take too much power. It’s hard to open the Gate and keep it open.Last time, the Mind Flayer needed the Russians’ machine.”

“So if it’s not random and not an invasion, what is it?” Dustin asked.“The Mind Flayer opened the Gate and sent two of its minions through.It did that for a reason.”

“Right,” Mike said.“It must be something deliberate... something targeted.”

“Like they’re on a mission,” Dustin said.He snapped his fingers and pointed at Mike excitedly.“They’re on a mission! Like when Skynet sent the Terminator back to kill Sarah Connor!”

Mike looked at Dustin, eyes wide with horror.

“El,” the black-haired boy said.“Dustin, they must be after El.”


	6. The Sailboat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the hardest chapter of them all to write. I can’t say I liked writing it. But without this chapter, El can’t get from where she is to where she’s going, so it felt necessary.
> 
> So I wrote it and there you go.
> 
> This chapter and the next end Act 1, leading into the journeys of Act 2.

**Bath, Maine - Morse High School**   
**Eight Days Earlier - Friday, December 6, 1985**

Eleven hated school.No one there ever explained anything.

At school they gave her books, filled with words she’d never seen.The teachers lectured about things she’d never heard of and they just assumed she knew what they meant.They gave her tests, but unless it was multiple choice she never had time to finish.She couldn’t write fast enough.She hadn’t practiced for years like the other kids.

Will helped her as much as he could, but he was in the advanced classes.They shared one class at the beginning of the day and then she was on her own until it was time to go home.

It wasn’t long before the whispers started and the torment began.Sometimes it was behind her back and sometimes to her face. 

The slow girl.The weird girl.The retard.The freak. 

_— You hear the way she talks?She must be on drugs.Hopped-up Hopper._

_— I heard she was a slut at her old school and that’s why she had to leave.Hopper will hop on anything._

She wanted to make them pee themselves or break the arms of the really mean ones, but she couldn’t.Not anymore. 

She hated school so much that after a while she just stopped going.She’d go to her first class with Will, so the Byers wouldn’t find out, and she’d stay after that as long as she could, and then when it got too much she would run.She would leave the squat, evil building behind her and she’d run to the special place she’d found, a place where it was quiet, where she could spend her days watching the water and dreaming.

Every night she’d take out the Supercom and listen to the static, wishing she could hear Mike, wishing she could still travel the Void to see him. 

She cried sometimes in bed, missing Mike terribly, yet grateful in a way that he couldn’t see what had become of her.A boy so perfect shouldn’t be with someone like her.Someone so… un-special.

It went very wrong at lunch, on a Friday, in early December.

She was throwing away the remains of the watery spaghetti the cafeteria always served on Fridays. Morse High School was a big place with a lot of students, so there were two lunch periods.Will, in the advanced classes, had the early lunch.El had the late lunch.She always ate by herself, quickly, on the days she bothered to stay through lunch at all.

Eddie Ricker and his clique found her.They circled her as she scraped the last food from her tray into the big plastic garbage can.The clique were a few preps like Eddie, a few jocks, their girlfriends and hangers-on.

“It’s Hopped-up Hopper,” one of the jocks laughed.

“Love the valley girl style,” a girl said.“Only five years out of date.”

Eleven looked around at the clique, surrounding her like a pride of lions cutting a gazelle out of the herd.She didn’t say anything.She tried to walk away.Eddie stepped in front of her.

“Where are you going, Hopper?” he asked, leaning in close. “I wanted to talk.”The other kids grinned and whispered, looking forward to some good sport.

“Don’t want to talk to you,” she said.She tried to walk away again but one of Eddie’s friends blocked her path.

“Don’t want to talk to you,” someone mimicked and there was laughter.

“Come on, Hopper,” Eddie said, “Word is you used to be fun at your old school.”He looked at his friends, enjoying their support.He leaned in closer and said in a stage whisper, “I heard you used to party.I heard you’re a good time.”

“Mouth breather,” El said and tried one more time to push past.Eddie grabbed her by the wrist.The tray dropped from her hands and clattered on the floor.

Across the cafeteria, one of the teachers looked over at the sound.

“Let’s have fun, party girl,” Eddie said, pulling her hand toward the waistband of his jeans.The boys cheered but one of the girls said, “Come on Eddie, don’t be gross.”

Eleven yanked free of his grip and instinctively stepped inside her mind, looking for the strands that would break this filthy boy’s leg.There was nothing but the grey wall.

The clique exploded in laughter.“Look at her,” one of the preps said, “she went all cross-eyed and shit.” 

Then Eddie was pawing her.Her mind exploded with rage as he tried to put his hands places she would only ever let Mike Wheeler touch.

El was a fighter.She’d spent three years battling bad men and horrors from the Upside Down.She slammed her fist into Eddie’s face with all her strength.

El was also a small, fifteen-year old girl.Eddie was barely fazed.He dabbed for a moment at the blood coming from his nose.Then the clique roared as he shoved El, pitching her backward over the garbage can.She landed on her back on the floor, rubbish from the can spilling over her.

“Ricker!” the teacher shouted, “Detention!Elsworth,” he pointed at another kid, “Detention!Thorsen!Detention!”

“Oh, come on, man, we were just playing around.She tripped,” Eddie said, but the teacher wasn’t hearing it.

“Miss Hopper, are you all right?” the teacher asked, but El ignored him.She struggled to her feet, looking at the spaghetti and milk splashed over her, and then she ran.The teacher shouted but it was just a noise in the background.She didn’t stop running until she was out the main doors of the school and into the cold December air.

She collapsed to her knees, leaning her head against the bricks of that hateful building, and she sobbed.There was one thought that she couldn’t stop.

_How could Mike love someone like me?_

She wrote the letter the next day.

* * *

**Bath, Maine - Maine Maritime Museum**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

There was an exhibit in the museum about a shipyard.El stared at the black and white photos of the great schooners they built there, enormous ships with four, five, even six masts.

She liked the museum.She could read what she wanted, sound things out and think them through.The staff had seen her running her finger over a baffling word in one of the exhibits.They’d given her a sheet of paper that explained all the terms – bow and stern, port and starboard, foc’sle and gangway and bowsprit and more.

It all made sense.Not like school.

Eleven ran her hand over a model of a small, single-masted sailboat with pretty lateen rigging.This was it, she thought.This was her escape.

She would make ships and she would guide them on the water.She would build a beautiful little ship with white sails like wings, and she would take it out to sea.She would name it the _Wheeler_, so the memories of Mike would be with her forever, and she would sail it out beyond the horizon and far away.


	7. The Hunters

**Bath, Maine - Maine Maritime Museum**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

It was late in the day when Eleven and her family left the museum.

El skipped down the stairs, her mind humming with ideas.She’d found flyers on the museum bulletin board for programs at the docks and at the Iron Works.She’d copied the phone numbers.The programs were apprenticeships – Will explained what that was – and it seemed she could learn about ships and the water while making money for her family.She’d do it for free, but if they paid her, even better.

She worried that she’d have to start going to school again.At the Iron Works, they’d probably expect her to read and write better, and it seemed like numbers and geometry could be important when you were building a ship. There didn’t seem any way around it, so she’d just have to keep her head down and work hard.

As she turned the possibilities over in her mind, El’s gaze drifted across the snow-covered yard of the museum to the tree line.

She froze.

There was something there, dimly visible in the light of the setting sun. It was white and pink and green, but the colors mixed together in a way that turned her stomach.It was big but it crouched, staying low and creeping through the trees.There was something off about it, something wrong. 

“Demogorgon,” El whispered.

There was another figure next to it, smaller and darker and down on all fours, but with that same sense of wrongness.Both of the creatures were loathsome, the angles of their bodies not quite right.Their heads were wrapped in slick, oily skin with a hideous parody of a flower where their faces should be.

Eleven’s eyes flicked over the woods and the yard, the bank of the river nearby, the museum buildings. There was nothing.She looked at her family, but the Byers were absorbed in conversation and hadn’t noticed.El’s eyes returned to the tree line.

The things were gone.

* * *

**Hawkins, Indiana - Hawkins National Laboratory**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

Mike sprinted out of the gate room.He hurtled up the steps, taking two at a time, past the ground floor and higher into the building.He kept going, nine flights, until he reached the top.Gasping, he raced from the stairwell and down a corridor to the window at the end.He looked out, his eyes searching the snow. 

Dustin joined him at the window, panting.“Really, top floor dude?Running up nine flights of steps?Shit.”

Mike didn’t say anything.He kept looking out the window.

“Mike, come on,” said Dustin.“Why would those things be after El?She’s lost her powers.”

“That’s exactly why,” Mike said, his eyes tracking over the snow as it turned blue and pink in the sunset light.“She’s lost her powers.This is the Mind Flayer’s chance to kill her, while she’s vulnerable.Think about it – why did the Mind Flayer send a demodog through and not just a demogorgon?”

“So it could find her,” Dustin gasped, his eyes wide. “Track her down.”

“Right.” Mike moved to another window.

“What are you doing, dude?I doubt those things are just hanging around down there in the snow.If anything they might be up here.”Dustin looked around nervously.

“I’m looking for tracks,” Mike told his friend. 

“What?Why?”

“We don’t know when the Gate opened, but we do know the last time it snowed was a week ago.”

“So?So what?”Mike’s non sequitur had Dustin worried.Maybe the threat to El had snapped his friend’s mind.

“So, if we see their tracks in the snow, we know the Upside Down must have been here recently - after the last snowfall.They could still be close by.”

“Right,” Dustin muttered, getting it now.“But if we don’t see tracks…”

“Then it’s because the snowfall a week ago covered them.They must have come through before then.”

Dustin gulped.“Or they never left the building at all and they’re going to kill us at any minute.”

Mike shook his head.“No, I’ve been here for a few hours.If either one of those things was still in the building, I’d have been dead long before you arrived.”

Dustin gave him an odd look._I wonder if he realizes how calmly he said that?_Dustin thought._He’s so worried about El, he doesn’t think to worry about himself._

Mike was still talking.“Dustin, I don’t know how fast those things can travel, but if they came through the Gate more than a week ago, that might be long enough for them to get to Maine.Long enough for them to get to El.”

“I’ll help you look,” Dustin said.

The boys circled the floor, going from window to window, checking the snow from every vantage point.They finally stopped again beside the east stairwell.

“I saw two sets of tracks,” Mike said. 

Dustin nodded.“Me too.One set was yours.One set was mine.” 

Mike locked eyes with his friend.“No Upside Down tracks.That means they came through at least a week ago.Dustin, we have to warn El.We have to get to Maine.”


	8. The Hunted

**Bath, Maine - The Byers House**  
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

El was quiet at dinner. 

Once a week, the Byers would go to a restaurant, switching between Italian and Chinese and seafood.It wasn’t high-end, but it was nice to do something different and give Joyce and Jonathan a break from cooking.This evening it was a small seafood restaurant on the docks with four tables and a carry-out counter.It was Eleven’s favorite, but tonight she picked at her lobster roll, her mind far away.

Joyce tried to draw her daughter out.The skinny young teen had been so excited at the museum, walking with purpose, devouring everything she could see and read.Joyce could swear there had been a skip in El’s step as they left the building.

But El was subdued now. She answered Joyce’s attempts at conversation with monotone, one-syllable words.That wasn’t exactly unusual for El, given she’d spent most of her first twelve years locked alone in a cell and the next year almost as alone in Jim Hopper’s cabin.But this was quiet even for her.

Jonathan and Will tried to help but it was little use.Eventually the Byers let her be, knowing that things had been tough and sometimes Eleven just needed her space.

It was late when they finally got home.The phone was ringing as they went inside but it stopped before Jonathan could reach it.

“Probably a telemarketer,” Joyce said. 

Jonathan sighed.“It should be illegal for them to call this late.”

One by one, the Byers called it a night and went off to sleep.Joyce was the last and she kissed El on the top of her head, gently stroking the girl’s short auburn curls.“Good night, honey.”

“Good night,” El said.

As Joyce walked away, Eleven called to her.“Mom?”

“Yes?”

There was a pause and then El said, “I love you.”

It wasn’t something that El said a lot.Joyce smiled.“I love you too.”Then Joyce went to bed, leaving Eleven sitting alone on the couch, legs drawn up and hugging her knees, watching the television with the volume down.

* * *

Eleven waited until she was certain all the Byers were asleep.Then she stole down into the basement.It was a cold, concrete place that the Byers used for storage, not at all like the basement she’d shared with Mike.

El grabbed a backpack and started pulling gear.Duct tape.Utility knife.Flashlight. 

She should have known the Mind Flayer wouldn’t let her be.She knew they hadn’t killed it last time, only shut off its access to this world when her father destroyed the gate machine.But the Mind Flayer was smart and it was relentless and it _hated_.It hated her.

She pulled a crowbar from a tool chest, then grabbed a hunting knife in a leather sheath.The knife was shiny and unused, a gift to Jonathan from his father.Jonathan hated hunting.

The Mind Flayer would keep coming, would keep sending its creatures after her until it was dead or she was.The lord of the Upside Down would find her wherever she went.And wherever she went, the people around her would be in danger.

Eleven opened a box of fireworks that the Byers saved for holidays.Inside were big cobra blasters and snap dragon shooters.Lucas had explained them to her once, saying that two of them together were the equal of an M-80.She didn’t know what that was, but Lucas had sounded impressed by it.

Whatever they were, they had served well in the battle of Starcourt.El grabbed eight and set to work duct-taping them together, until she had four firework bombs.

She didn’t know how the Mind Flayer had found her.Maybe the demodog had tracked her or maybe there was still something inside her from the Fourth of July.It didn’t matter.

She stuffed the gear into her backpack.The last thing she grabbed was Jonathan’s baseball bat.It was wooden, heavy, with a black brand that read Louisville Slugger.Jonathan liked the bat.She hoped he’d forgive her for taking it.

She looked at the rifle hanging on the wall but let it be.The Byers might need it.

El went upstairs to her bedroom and pushed clothes into the bag.She took the Supercom from beside her bed. It was a gift from Mike and his parents, something to let her know that she was one of the Party.It was a new model, with good range, though not enough to reach as far as Hawkins.Lucas and Dustin and Will had been so jealous when they’d seen it.She put that in the bag too.

She knew that creatures from the Upside Down had an inhuman logic.They probably wouldn’t attack her immediately.They would stalk her.They would want her to be scared when they killed her. 

If the people she loved were anywhere near, the Upside Down would kill them too. Without her powers, she couldn’t protect them.

In the kitchen she grabbed Eggos from the fridge and some soda, then a can of Pringles from the cupboard.She pulled on her coat.

There was one more thing to do. El ripped a sheet of paper from the scratchpad by the phone and started writing.She left the note on the kitchen table.

_Mom and Will and Jonathan,_

_ I have to go.It’s not your fault.Don’t blame yourselves at all._

_ I wish I could stay but I can’t. _

_ I won’t be back.Please don’t look for me._

_ I love you._

_ El_

She pulled on her gloves and slung the backpack over her shoulder.She gripped the baseball bat and went outside, careful to lock the door behind her. 

It was snowing.That was good; it would cover her tracks.She headed into the night, looking back once at the Byers house before it disappeared in the distance. 

She wiped her eyes.She didn’t want the tears to freeze on her cheeks.


	9. The Driver

**Hawkins, Indiana - The Wheeler House**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

Mike slammed the phone down. 

“No one’s answering!It rings and rings and no one picks up!”He turned to Dustin, eyes filled with fear.“Do you think the Upside Down… do you think we’re too late?”

“No!” said Dustin.“No.They’re probably just out.You know, it’s Saturday.They’re probably out for dinner or something.”

“Right.Saturday.They’re out.”Mike grasped at that, repeating it a few times to reassure himself.“Why don’t they at least have an answering machine, though?”

Dustin made the thumb-and-fingers money gesture.

Mike grabbed a backpack from its hook on the basement wall.“Fine.We go to Plan B.We’ll head out now and call them from the road.”

Dustin choked.“What are you talking about?” he exclaimed.“Do you know how far it is to Maine?What are we going to do, ride our bikes?”

“It’s 1,232 miles from here to Bath,” Mike said.He stuffed his Supercom into the backpack.“We could be there on Monday if we drive hard.”

Dustin stared at the skinny teen in amazement.“How could you possibly know that?” he asked, and then mentally face-palmed.Of course Mike would know how far away Eleven was and how long it would take to reach her.

Mike ignored the question, adding a flashlight and a road atlas to his bag.“Our last exams were yesterday.From now until Christmas break, school is just a free baby-sitting service for the parents.We won’t miss anything.”

“Mike, I get that you’re worried about El and so am I, but there’s a giant hole in your plan – we can’t drive!”Dustin waved his arms furiously.“Are you going to ask your parents to drive us?My mom?You’re going to tell them that we need to make a twelve-hundred mile road trip at short notice because some monsters are stalking the north woods?Dude, they’ll think we’re insane!”

“Go to your place,” Mike told him.“Get your stuff.And of course we’re not going to ask our parents to drive.”

“Yeah?”Dustin asked.“Then who?”

* * *

Steve Harrington stared at the two boys.“You want me to take you on a twelve-hundred mile road trip at short notice because some monsters are stalking the north woods?”

“When you say it out loud like that, it sounds kind of crazy,” Dustin said, looking meaningfully at Mike.The black-haired boy ignored him.

“This is for real, Steve.It’s not just ‘some monsters’ – it’s a demogorgon and a demodog.And they’re after El.”

Behind the counter of the video store, Steve ran a hand through his perfect hair.Next to him, his girl-that’s-a-friend Robin looked worried.

“Are you sure?” she asked.“Maybe those footprints you saw are old?Maybe it’s a false alarm?”

“We’re sure,” said Mike.He elbowed Dustin, who sighed and nodded.

“That’s right,” the curly-haired boy said.“We’re sure.”He seemed to wrestle with himself, as if not certain he should go on, but finally his inner goodness won out.“It’s the real thing.And remember guys – if the Upside Down ever comes back into our world in force, Eleven is the only one who can stop it.If those things get her now, while her powers are on the fritz, it could be the end for all of us.”

Mike was surprised by Dustin’s words and now even more alarmed.He’d been so focused on El, it hadn’t occurred to him how dangerous the situation could be for everyone else.

“So it’s just the fate of the world at stake,” Steve said.“Cool.No pressure.Maybe we could just call the Byers and warn them?”

“El doesn’t have her powers,” Mike repeated.“It’s just her and the Byers, alone.Even if we manage to contact them - which we haven’t so far - they’ll still need our help to have any chance of stopping those things.”

Steve hesitated, but he knew first-hand what the Upside Down was capable of.Robin laid a gentle hand on his arm and he sighed.“Okay,” he said, and was rewarded with grateful smiles all around.“Okay, I’ll do it.I’ll probably lose my job for bugging out of here on a Saturday night - _our busiest time_.And I can’t imagine what we’re going to tell your families.”

“I’ll cover for you with Keith, tell him you had a family emergency,” Robin said.

“And don’t worry about our families,” Mike told him, “we’ll give them a cover story.But Steve?We have to go _now_.”

Steve hopped over the counter.“I get it, Wheeler – Eleven’s in trouble, the fate of the world is at stake, and we have to stop the Upside Down... _again_.But first we’re going to stop at my place so I can grab some clothes. Where’s Lucas?”

“He left with his family for Wisconsin yesterday,” Dustin said, “right after exams were finished.Max is with him.There’s nobody but us.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Steve sighed.

Mike quietly studied the older boy as they left the video store.Steve was ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice, leave his job and go charging out onto the highway to face off against the Upside Down.All on the say-so of two young teenagers to help rescue a girl he barely knew.

For a guy Mike once considered a preppy douche bag, Steve was full of surprises.


	10. The Fortress

**Bath, Maine - Route 1 Roadside**  
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

Eleven walked the road in the dark, her hood pulled low against the cold.The snow blanketing the ground glowed in the moonlight and made it easy to see the way.Street lamps shone dimly.Now and then the road was lit by the headlights of a passing car.

Sometimes a car would slow, as if to offer a ride to a lonely girl walking the roadside late at night.The car would always speed up when it got closer.It was probably the baseball bat.

After a mile, El reached the turn-off into the forest.The way ahead would be darker now, with the trees looming overhead.But the trees were bare of leaves and the moon shone through enough to light up the snow.

She pulled her hood off despite the cold.With the trees all around, the Upside Down could get close before she knew it.She needed her peripheral vision, needed her hearing.She walked cautiously, gripping and regripping the bat, her body stiff with tension.Every so often she turned a full circle, surveying the black spears of the trees against the white of the snow.

A scuttling sound played at the far edges of her hearing.It was behind her sometimes, off to the side at others.Whenever she looked, there was nothing.Sometimes a branch was waving amongst the trees, as if brushed by something in passing.

Or maybe it was just the wind.

After half a mile, El reached the bridge.It stretched a few hundred yards out into the Kennebec River to an island at the far end.The bridge was old and wooden and only wide enough for one car. 

It was beautiful in the moonlight and the falling snow.

Eleven hesitated.Once she was on the bridge, there was only one way she could run if the Upside Down appeared.Leaping into the water in this cold would kill her quickly – though perhaps that would be a blessing.

She started across. 

The moonlight on the water was very pretty. 

She’d never been here at night before.In a different time, a different circumstance, she would have stopped to watch the silver light dance in the current.But she had to hurry now.

She wasn’t certain how the Upside Down felt about water.Mike had given her a book once about an evil lord.The lord’s minions, the Nazgul, were afraid of water.Max had told her once about vampires and how they wouldn’t cross running water.Maybe it was the same for all evil things?

But Eleven had first come to the Mind Flayer’s dark dimension from the water-filled chamber of the Bathtub.Water rippled under her feet whenever she walked the Void.And three years ago, the first demogorgon had taken Barbara Holland from a swimming pool.

No, the river probably wouldn’t stop them.

El walked faster and looked ahead to the island, a rocky promontory thrusting high out of the river, its steep slopes covered with black trees.She looked back, half expecting to see a demogorgon on the bridge behind her.

Some of the tension eased from her back and legs when she reached the other side.

The road wound up the slope, weaving through the trees to a plateau at the top of the island.El looked back sometimes as she climbed, watching the bridge.There was never anything there.Nothing she could see, anyway.

Finally El was at the top, standing on the plateau.She followed the road a bit farther through the woods to the edge of the tree line.A clear field of snow stretched from there to a great dark mansion that perched on the edge of a cliff.It was hundreds of feet to the river below.

This was it.This was her special place, her escape from the wreckage of her life ever since she lost her father and lost her powers and lost Mike.It was the place where she could watch the water and dream about better things.It was the fortress where she would make her last stand.


	11. The Static

**Hawkins, Indiana - Family Video Store**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

“Gentlemen, your chariot awaits,” Steve said proudly.In the snowy parking lot of the video store, the blue and white car gleamed under the light of a street lamp.The vehicle’s lines and contours shone from a fresh coat of wax.

“What happened to the BMW?” asked Mike.

Steve’s smile faded slightly.“My dad sold it.Long story.”

“Is that… a Chevy Impala?” Dustin asked.

“Yeah,” said Steve, “So?”He thought he detected a hint of disdain in the boy’s voice.

“A _1975_ Chevy Impala?” Dustin asked.That was definitely disdain.

“Well excuse me for not rolling in a Ferrari, Bill Gates.Some of us have to work for a living.”

“It’s great,” Mike said.He opened a door and tossed his bag into the cavernous back seat.

“It’s more than great,” Steve said.“This thing is a babe magnet.”

As they piled into the car and Steve cranked the ignition, Dustin made a deliberate show of looking around.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked.He’d come to view Dustin as more or less his little brother, but the kid could still annoy the hell out of him.

“I was looking for the babes,” Dustin said.“I guess you turned the magnet off.”

Steve snorted.He pulled a cassette from the glove compartment, pushed it into the tape deck and turned up the volume. 

The iconic guitar intro to Boston’s _Smokin’_ pumped from the speakers.

“All right, guys,” Steve said, revving the engine.“Let’s go save the world.”

* * *

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Saturday, December 14, 1985**

El watched the plateau from the tree line.There were no tracks in the field, no lights from the mansion, nothing in the trees.She waited a bit, just to be sure, and then she set out across the snow.

The mansion had been owned years ago by the Whateley family.They were once the richest family in Bath, making their money in whaling and timber, but over the years their fortune dwindled.Eventually a distant cousin sold the mansion and the island to the city.

The city turned it into a park and a museum.Visitors came to tour the house and enjoy the woods and the river.It was closed during the winter.

This was all recorded in the exhibits that decorated the mansion.Eleven had read them with interest the first time she broke in.

The snow in the field was deep and piled in drifts, slowing her down. Her eyes flicked between the trees and the mansion and the mansion’s two outbuildings.One of the buildings was a little shed, the other an old garage, now used for storage.

There were a lot of places for something to hide.

The mansion was designed in what the exhibits called a Victorian style.It was two stories, with a full roofed wrap-around porch.There would be lovely fresh breezes on that porch in the summer, but now the wind on the cliff top was bitterly cold.

The porch was covered with a light dusting of snow. She didn’t see any tracks. 

El crept around to the side of the house.She had pried open a window there on her first visit, weeks ago, and it slid up easily now.She slipped through the window into the living room that dominated the ground floor. 

Overstuffed chairs and couches hunched in the darkness.Dim outlines of maps and lamps and ship’s bells decorated the walls.A staircase with black banisters climbed to the second floor.The whole room whispered the lives of a wealthy family of long ago.

Eleven kept her flashlight off.There wasn’t another house on the island, and the closest neighbor was probably a mile away, but she feared the glow would be seen by something much worse than a neighbor.Moonlight spilled through the windows, more than enough to see by. 

Those windows would be a problem when the Upside Down came, she thought.She’d have to fix them, but not now.Tonight, she was too tired.

* * *

El decided to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms.The master bedroom was too big, with plenty of space for two monsters from the Upside Down to maneuver.The room she chose was small and feminine, with pink and white bedding and pretty dust ruffles and a little desk. 

She wouldn’t sleep on the bed, of course.She would be easy prey there.In the darkness, she pulled the comforter from the bed and draped it over the desk, covering every side all the way to the floor.She slipped under the cover, dragging a blanket with her and spreading it underneath. 

It was like a smaller version of the fort Mike had created for her in his basement, so long ago.

She turned on her flashlight and dug into the backpack.She laid out the hunting knife, and next to it the crowbar and the baseball bat.She pulled an Eggo from its yellow box and ate it quickly, listening.There was nothing but the whistling wind and the creaks and groans every old house makes in the night. 

El pulled the Supercom from her bag and switched it on, setting the dial to Mike’s familiar channel.Static whispered and crackled at her.She turned off her flashlight. 

She started to talk, the way she had every night since she moved away.

“Mike are you there?It’s me, Eleven.”

The Supercom hissed at her.

“I know you can’t hear me, Mike.But it’s nice to pretend you’re there.”

The static was low, like white noise.

“I wanted you to know that I miss you, Mike.I love you.”

Hiss.

“I know I stopped taking your calls and I sent you that letter.That probably confused you.I’m sorry.”

“I wanted to make it easy for you, Mike.I know you can’t love me the way I am now.But I know how kind you are.I think you might pretend you loved me for a long time.You might even pretend it to yourself.I don’t want you to do that.”

Eleven sniffed and wiped at the tears that started from her eyes.She took a deep breath and blinked them away.

“The Byers took me to the museum today, Mike.It was wonderful.I wish I could tell you about it.”She paused the Supercom for a moment, staring into the dark, then she triggered it again, bringing it to her lips.“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.I don’t think I have many more nights to talk to you, Mike.”

She paused the Supercom again, took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I saw a demogorgon today.A demodog too.I’m pretty sure they’re going to kill me.Now that I’m not special, I can’t stop them.”

“I left the Byers tonight, Mike,” she continued, her voice strained.“I left Joyce and Will and Jonathan.I don’t want them to die, because of me.”

“I miss you Mike, but I’m glad you’re not here.That way I know you’re safe.”

She cradled the Supercom against her.“I just wish... I wish I could have showed you the ocean, Mike.It’s beautiful.I think you would have liked it.Whatever happens, you should see it when I’m gone. When you see the waves, it would be nice if you think of me.”

Eleven stared into the blackness of her fort.“I guess that’s all for tonight, Mike,” she said.“Good night.I miss you.I love you.”

The Supercom hissed and crackled, connecting with whatever worlds it could.


	12. The Drive

**Eastbound I-90**   
**Sunday, December 15, 1985**

It started as a visceral thrill.Tires squealed as they shot down the roads of Hawkins and onto the interstate.Steve’s car – which Dustin and Mike quickly dubbed the Land Yacht – roared as it tore up the pavement.A soundtrack of Whitesnake’s _Here I Go Again_, George Thorogood’s _Bad to the Bone_, and ZZ Top’s _La Grange_, classic driving songs every one, pounded in their ears.Hitched to that big engine, they were the cavalry riding to the rescue.

Then it wasn’t so thrilling.Hour after hour, last night and today, the highway stretched before them.As they travelled long miles across flat, remarkably featureless terrain, adrenaline faded and energy levels fell.By that time, they’d heard Steve’s tapes so many times that they settled for sports talk on AM radio.

Mike sighed.Even when you were hurtling down the road at top speed to save the world and the life of the woman you loved, long distance driving was just _boring_.

* * *

They talked as they drove.The conversation wandered, the way it will when three people are locked in a car together and trying to kill time.

They’d just finished an extended debate on whether _Return of the Jedi_ was, despite initial enthusiasm, not that good of a movie after all.Dustin strongly supported it as a classic for the special effects alone, but Mike labeled it a distant third after the original _Star Wars_ and the even better _Empire Strikes Back_.Steve lobbed in the tiebreaker.

“I mean, I love the teddy bears,” he said.“And I get that it’s a great looking film.But the scene where Chewbacca makes a Tarzan sound when he swings onto that walker?It’s like, come on guys, if _you’re_ not going to take your movie seriously, why should _I_ take your movie seriously?”

Even Dustin had to concede the point.

Steve picked at a spot on the dash where plastic was peeling away.“So, you know, I fought a demogorgon once,” he said casually.“Me and Jonathan and Nancy.It was pretty tough.We shot it, burned it, hit it with a bat and caught it in a bear trap… and it still got away.Then it tore up all those agents at the school and it was El who had to kill it.”

The boys knew they had to talk about this eventually, but it certainly wasn’t as fun as a Star Wars debate.

“So with El not having any powers, you guys got plans for how we’re going to beat it?”Steve asked.

Mike watched farmland drift by in brown and green waves.“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said.“I have a hunch that the first demogorgon was pulling power from the Upside Down while it was here.The Gate was wide open, remember.I think that let the demogorgon travel through the Void to get to different places and even heal itself when it was injured.”

“But you think that since the Gate is closing…” Dustin said.

“Right.I think - I hope - that this time the demogorgon won’t be able to draw on the Upside Down.With the Gate closing, maybe it can’t use the Void to travel.Maybe it can’t heal.It will still be tough, especially since there’s a demodog too, but maybe they’ll be vulnerable enough that we can kill them.”

“That’s a lot of maybes, Wheeler,” Steve observed.“So we’re looking at, what, a 99% chance of death instead of 100%?”

Mike shrugged.“I don’t know.I suppose.But I’ll take those odds for El.”

“That’s some real commitment to a girl who broke up with you, dude,” Dustin said.He raised his hands defensively at the look on Mike’s face.“I’m not saying it’s wrong.El’s my friend too.I’m with you and so is Steve.Right, Steve?”

“As far as I can tell I’m still driving east,” Steve said wryly.  “So yeah, I’m with you.”He looked at Mike in the rearview mirror.“El dumped you, Wheeler?When did that happen?”

“Thanks for bringing that up,” Mike snapped at Dustin.Then to Steve, “She didn’t dump… I don’t know… Yeah, I guess she did.A little while ago.”Mike stared out the window miserably.

“What happened?”Steve asked.“What, were you bad in bed or something?”

“Why do people keep saying that?” Mike yelped.“No, it wasn’t because I was bad in bed!”

“He’s still a virgin,” Dustin clarified.

Mike slapped his hands over his face, wanting to strangle his friend or perhaps just sink into the bench seat of the Impala and disappear. 

“Well, that’s okay,” Steve said, trying to play the responsible big brother.“What are you guys, like thirteen?” 

“Fifteen!” Mike said, wounded.

“Fifteen,” Steve repeated.“Well, that’s still pretty young.And Eleven spent like most of her life in that lab, right?It’s probably good to take it easy with her, not try to rush things.”

For a moment the boys were silent and another mile marker ticked past.

“So what broke you guys up, Wheeler?” Steve asked again.“Was it the long distance thing?She meet another guy?”

Mike’s eyes widened.Another guy?It had never even occurred to him… he shot a horrified look at Dustin.

Steve saw it all in the rearview mirror.“What?” he asked. “You didn’t think it could be another guy?”

“Well, I do now!” Mike gasped. 

Mike slumped back on the seat and covered his eyes, moaning.Of course it was another guy.It all made sense.

Eleven was quiet and distant.Her letters got shorter and shorter.She stopped taking his calls altogether.And nothing about Mike had changed, so it had to be El who changed.She’d…

She’d found someone else.Someone better.

“Come on, Eleven wouldn’t do that,” Dustin said.“She loves you, Mike – loved you, anyway.I’ve never even seen her look at another guy.Am I right, Steve?”

Dustin clearly hoped that Harrington would back his play, but the older boy shrugged.

“I don’t know,” Steve said, and Mike could hear bitterness in his tone.“Other guys are always out there.I mean, it doesn’t even have to be long distance.There’s always another guy waiting to move in on your girl, no matter where you are.Even when you’re living in the same town.Even when you see her every day.Even when you were her first and she says she loves you.”

The older boy was quiet then, thinking his own thoughts as another mile went by.

Steve was right, Mike thought.There were always other guys.And El was twelve hundred miles away in a new town, and she had just started to go to public school, surrounded by hundreds of boys.

How could Mike have been so stupid not to see this coming? 

El was unbelievably pretty.Huge brown eyes.Exquisite, kissable lips.Delicate features on a face that could only be described as hauntingly beautiful.All of it crowned with thick, lustrous auburn hair.How couldn’t other guys be interested?

And it wasn’t just her face – she was becoming quite a young woman.Her body was sleek and slender, with incredible long legs that went up to here.Wonderful curves were starting to round out her hips and other parts of her too.From the moment she showed up at school, all of those guys from Maine must have been sniffing around her like a pack of horny wolves.

And she’d be interested in them, too.There would be athletic, muscular jocks and rich, handsome preps and moody, artistic goths.Any type of guy that might strike El’s fancy would be available and she’d be comparing them to Mike.

Good God.She’d be comparing them to a skinny guy who taught her how to play Dungeons & Dragons.Who took her into his basement to show off his video games and his ham radio._Who was president of the AV Club._

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Mike groaned.His stomach knotted and he felt a desperate pressure on his heart. 

“Whoa, not in my car!” Steve said, panicked.He started to drift the Impala toward the shoulder.“Out of the car, Wheeler, out of the car!”

The feeling passed and Mike gasped for breath.“It’s okay,” he said, “no, it’s okay.I’m all right.”

“Just roll the window down or something,” Dustin urged.Like Steve, he clearly didn’t relish the idea of Mike being sick all over the car.

Mike took some deep breaths to steady himself.

“Geez, Wheeler, pull it together,” Steve said.“So you got dumped man, it happens.Trust me, it happens.” The older boy’s voice grew soft, almost as if he was talking to himself.“It happens to the best of us.”


	13. The Waiting

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Sunday, December 15, 1985**

In the morning, El prepared her fortress for the siege.

She’d slept last night in her winter coat, wrapped in layers of blankets against the cold. When the sun came up and she found she was still alive, she decided to be more practical. The mansion had electricity and water, but the heat was off. She’d have to go into the basement to start the boiler. 

* * *

Jim Hopper had taught Eleven some useful things.It took some effort, but eventually she got the big boiler roaring in the mansion’s small, stony cellar.El smiled for a moment, thanking her father.

She played her flashlight around the basement, the dark corners of the room creating threatening shadows.A chill went through her despite the heat pumping through the small black room.She hurried up the stairs, grateful to be into the daylight again.

* * *

The Upside Down liked to hunt at night.Humans were afraid without light, and the Upside Down liked the way that emotion tasted.

They still hunted in the day. It just wasn’t their preference.El knew they were a threat, but while the sun was up she might have some time to get ready.

First things first.She munched a cold Eggo as she carried her gear into the downstairs study.It was a small room, wood paneled with blocky furniture and nautical paintings.There was a glass-fronted oak case mounted in one wall.It was locked shut. Inside the case was a gleaming silver shotgun, a prized possession of the Whateley patriarch many years ago.

If Eleven was still special, it would be a matter of moments to unlock the case with her mind.If she was still special, she wouldn’t need the gun.

She could break the glass, or pry open the case with her crowbar, or...

Sensible girl that she was, El had searched the mansion during her first visits and found a set of spare keys in one of the offices.Now she flipped through the keys on the ring, unlocked the cabinet and pulled the shotgun free. 

Powers weren’t everything.

El didn’t know much about guns.She’d never needed one before, being plenty deadly without. 

After she lost her powers, her brothers Will and Jonathan had showed her how to use a rifle one cold autumn afternoon.She wasn’t fond of it, the booming sounds and the way it kicked in her hands.It reminded her of the agents from the Lab.But she could handle it.After that day she thought she was a better shot than Jonathan but not as good as Will.

Whatever she knew about guns, she knew this one was beautiful.The stock and the receiver were engraved, decorated with fine silver and gold etchings of dogs and ducks, mountains and forests and lakes.The gun was polished and shone in the light.This was the gun of a wealthy man who wanted the best.

She opened the drawer at the bottom of the cabinet and grabbed a box of shells.She didn’t load the gun - not yet. Will and Jonathan had taught her it wasn’t safe to load a gun until you were ready to use it. She put the box in her backpack and tucked a few shells in her pocket.The Upside Down might not give a lot of warning.

* * *

Next was the bat.El looked out the front door, scanning the snow for tracks or movement.There was nothing but the footprints she’d left last night.With shotgun and bat in hand, she tromped through the drifts to the old garage.

She looked through the windows first to make sure nothing was lurking inside.Then she unlocked the door, stepping into an old, dusty structure that once held the Whateley’s cars.It was storage now - wood and tools and gasoline for the back-up generator.

Eleven grabbed a hammer and a handful of long nails.Then she went to work.In fifteen minutes, she transformed the Louisville Slugger into a wickedly sharp spiked mace that even Steve Harrington would appreciate.

Enough offense.Time for some defense.There were wooden planks stacked high in the garage.She grabbed them, two at a time, and started hauling them into the house.After a few trips, overheated, she shed her coat and kept hauling.Soon she had a good-sized pile in the mansion’s living room.

She picked up her hammer and nails and started boarding the windows.It was long, sweaty work.She wasn’t good with a hammer.She hissed curses and moaned every time she hit her thumb.But El was smart and a fast learner and soon she was driving nails with the speed and expertise of desperation.

As morning turned to afternoon, she closed off the doors and windows on the ground floor behind a screen of two by fours. The only thing she left clear was the front door.

Almost done.She pulled the firework bombs from her backpack, tied them into a fuse, and arranged them by the front door.She stacked three cans of gasoline from the garage next to the fireworks.

It was late afternoon when she finished.El slung her backpack, slid the shotgun through the straps, and gripped her spiked bat.Her eyes looked over the explosive trap at the front door.She twisted the fuse a last time, then flicked her lighter just to make sure it worked.The flame snapped to life.

El closed her eyes, weary.

“Come and get it,” she whispered.

* * *

Eleven retreated upstairs.There were still a few hours of sunlight left.Hot and sweaty, she stepped into the master bathroom and turned on the water for a quick shower.

She could picture her friend Dustin talking about how people who take showers in horror movies always die.But it had been a long and tiring day, she was filthy, and the shotgun and bat were close at hand.She scrubbed quickly, ears straining against the running water for the slightest hint of the Upside Down. 

The water was glorious.Too soon, she turned the shower off and grabbed a towel.

For just a moment, her eyes flicked over her reflection in the bathroom mirror.Skinny.Bony.Angular hips and awkward arms and legs like a foal still growing into herself.Not enough curves, barely-there breasts. 

She thought her face wasn’t right.It was too long somehow.She hoped she had nice eyes though, and nice lips.

But she had to admit Mike had probably never loved her for her looks.

When Mike first loved her, she didn’t even have hair.He had never, ever been bothered by her appearance, never cared that she was too plain for someone as handsome as he was.

She turned away from the mirror and pulled on her clothes.She was going to die soon.None of it mattered anymore.

* * *

Eleven spent the rest of the day waiting.She sat at the top of the stairs, the shotgun beside her, the bat in her hand, watching the front door.Now and then she patrolled, first the windows on the upper floor, then a pass over the boarded-up doors and windows of the ground floor.

The sun sank low.

Night fell.

She sat at the top of the stairs in the dark.

The house creaked and groaned like it always did.She ate another Eggo and finished the can of Pringles.The Mountain Dew was making her a little jittery. 

Nothing came, though she heard odd, scurrying noises that filled her with dread.

***

As the night stretched on she struggled to keep her eyes open.Upside Down or no, she needed to get at least a little sleep.She retreated to her bedroom and crawled into her fort.She laid out her weapons, then curled up in the blankets and turned on the Supercom.She found Mike’s channel.

“Mike are you there?It’s me, Eleven.”

The Supercom’s familiar static hissed at her.

“I know you can’t hear me, Mike.But it’s nice—.”

There was a crackling then on the channel, the sharp shriek of a transmission.

“El?El, is that you?”

She stared at the machine, shocked.Was that...?

“El, are you there?”It was his voice.The voice she had loved since she a twelve year old girl lost in the rain. 

“El, it’s me, Mike!It’s Mike!Where are you?Please, answer me!El, you’re in danger!”


	14. The Supercom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter maybe got a bit silly, but that’s how young men tend to be in the fifteenth hour of a road trip.

**Eastbound I-90**   
**Sunday, December 15, 1985**

The Land Yacht roared through upstate New York, the day turned to night, and Dustin worried about Mike.The lanky teen joined half-heartedly in Dustin and Steve’s road trip banter, but mostly he brooded.He was probably tormenting himself with visions of El and another guy. 

Despite Mike’s moodiness, the trio resolved a few important issues by the time they got to Albany.

— _Star Wars or Star Trek?_Consensus:Star Wars, but a hat-tip to Kirk for hooking up with green chicks. 

— _Godzilla vs Kong?_Consensus:Godzilla in the third round with his atomic breath, and Kong should consider himself lucky he lasted that long. 

— _Ginger or Mary Ann?_Consensus:Please.Has anyone ever picked Ginger?

Eventually the conversation drifted back to El and Mike’s breakup.It wasn’t that Dustin and Steve wanted to torture their friend, but you could only talk pop culture trivia for so long before you needed a spacer.

“Let me check something,” Steve said.“Are you sure she actually broke up with you, Wheeler?”

Mike sighed.“She stopped speaking to me two weeks ago.I used to call her once a week, but since Thanksgiving she never seems to be around.Then she sent me a letter a few days ago saying she didn’t want me to write to her anymore.”

“Well, that sounds like a breakup,” Steve admitted.He frowned.“You only talked to her once a week, Wheeler?Girls usually want more communication than that.They’re…” he waved a hand, searching for his point, “they’re really into talking about stuff.I mean, _really_ into talking about stuff.Like, _a lot_.”

“I can’t imagine why Nancy dumped you,” Dustin said.

“I know they like to talk,” Mike almost whined.“I wanted to talk to El too, all the time!But it’s long distance and my parents wouldn’t let me call her more often.”

“Couldn’t you use those walkie-talkies?” Steve asked.“Or Dustin has Cerebro.”

“The Supercoms don’t reach that far,” Mike said.“My parents got El a really nice one that has good range, but no way it could reach all the way to Hawkins.”

“And the Byers don’t have a ham radio,” Dustin told Steve.The younger boy made the money gesture.He was growing fond of it.“We hoped Cerebro would work with the Supercoms, but for that distance it turns out you need a bigger receiver.”

“So you really couldn’t talk to her… that sucks,” Steve said.“It’s like being forced to play with a handicap and you’re not that great to begin with.”

“They’re star-crossed,” Dustin opined.“Like Romeo and Juliet.Or Sonny and Cher.”

“Seriously, guys,” Mike said.“Not helping.”

The conversation roamed.Dustin took it to a place that had been bothering him.

“Even if Mike’s right and the demogorgon can’t heal, we still have to kill it.How are we supposed to do that?Steve, did you bring the spiked bat with you?”

“No, my dad found it,” the older boy said.“He accused me of being a gang member.Asked me whether I was Crips or Bloods.I had to get rid of it.”

“The Byers have a rifle,” Mike suggested.“The Party took it shooting a few times – you know, bottles and stop signs and stuff.”

Dustin was silent, hoping Mike wouldn’t bring up…

“Just don’t give it to Dustin,” Mike laughed.

Dustin rolled his eyes.He’d managed to get to a place where he and Steve had a nice mutual respect thing going.Mike was set to flush that well and good.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.“Why not?”

“Let’s just say that all over Indiana, the broad sides of barns are sleeping peacefully tonight.Seriously, the safest place to stand is where he’s aiming.” 

Dustin scowled.Apparently one way to get Mike out of his funk was to give him a chance to tease his best friend.

“Okay, so I had some trouble getting the hang of the sight,” Dustin said defensively.

“And the trigger, the drop, the recoil…” Mike grinned.“But I give you credit, you showed the dirt six feet in front of the target that you really meant business.”

Steve laughed.Dustin extended his hands and calmly gave the other two boys the finger.Mike snorted.

“Seriously though, we will need some weapons,” Steve said.They started to mull over the issue.It didn’t escape Dustin that Harrington had gently changed the subject.

They kicked the problem around inconclusively and got side-tracked into a discussion of the ideal gun for facing the Upside Down.

“It’s got to be a rifle,” Mike ventured.“You should keep them away and take them down before they get to you.”

“That’s a nice concept,” said Dustin.“But they can travel through walls, remember?At least when the Gate’s open.Hard to keep them away when they climb out of the bricks right next to you.”

“Dustin’s right,” Steve agreed.“You need a handgun for close quarters.”

“You’re a wise man, Harrington,” Dustin said.

“Don’t you forget it, Henderson.And if you’re talking handgun, it’s got to be the Desert Eagle.The demogorgon wouldn’t stand a chance.”Steve mimed pointing a gun.

Mike shook his head.“I was reading _Soldier of Fortune_ and they were talking about this new gun coming out, the Ruger Super Redhawk.It would totally beat the Desert Eagle.”

Dustin and Steve didn’t question Mike’s choice of periodicals.Every respectable boy of the 1980s had at least a few issues of _Soldier of Fortune_, alongside their copies of _Black Belt_, _Starlog_, and - under the mattress - _Playboy_.

“No no,” Steve objected, “no no.Judge’s ruling, please - guns that don’t exist yet are totally disqualified.You might as well talk about how the Mark 4 plasma rifle would totally kick ass.”

“Judge rules: point to Harrington,” Dustin announced. 

Mike huffed but then ruefully nodded.

“Anyway, you’re both wrong,” Dustin told them.“The only gun for fighting the Upside Down is the Smith & Wesson Model 29.”

“What?” Mike said.

“Yeah, what?” Steve said.“How do you figure, Henderson?”

“Are you kidding me?” Dustin asked.“You’re serious?It’s _Dirty Harry’s_ gun.” 

Dustin squinted his eyes and started quoting from the Clint Eastwood classic in his best rasping growl.

“I know what you’re thinking.Did he fire six shots or only five?Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kinda lost track myself.”

After that, Steve and Mike couldn’t help joining in.

“But being this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’Well, do you punk?”

The boys high-fived.Debate settled.If it was good enough for Dirty Harry Callahan, it was good enough for them.

It was a shame they didn’t actually have one.

* * *

It was very late by the time they got to Boston.

“Come on Steve, Maine’s not that much further,” Mike pleaded.

“Forget it, Wheeler,” Steve said, his voice thick with fatigue.“If I keep going we’ll never reach Maine, because I’ll wrap this thing around a tree.We’ve got to call it a night.We don’t have to sleep long but we have to sleep.”

“He’s right, Mike,” Dustin told his friend.“If we show up all zombied out, we won’t be any good to anyone.”

They stopped at a motel on the outskirts of the city and spent most of their remaining cash on a cramped, tired room that had seen better days.Steve and Dustin grabbed the two single beds and Mike slumped on the couch.

“We tried the Byers like six times today and they never answered,” Dustin mused.The other boys didn’t respond.None of them wanted to consider what that might mean.

“I’ll get the light,” Steve said at last.As he reached for the switch, there was a crackling sound from Mike’s backpack.

“The Supercom!” Mike gasped.He scrambled to his bag.A voice came through over the ether.

“Mike are you there?It’s me, Eleven.”

Mike pulled the Supercom from the bag and fumbled at the controls.

“I know you can’t hear me, Mike,” El’s voice continued.“But it’s nice—”

Mike desperately triggered the device.“El?El is that you?” 

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“El, are you there?”There was a tremble in Mike’s voice that Dustin hadn’t heard since the Fourth of July.

“El, it’s me, Mike!It’s Mike!Where are you?Please, answer me!El, you’re in danger!”


	15. The Refusal

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Sunday, December 15, 1985**

The desperation in Mike’s voice broke through El’s shock.She couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten into range of her Supercom, or where he was, or why he was there.But it was Mike, her beautiful boy, talking to her again.Behind the cotton walls of her fort, she adjusted the dials on the machine and tried to clear the static.

She keyed the transmission switch.“Mike?Is that really you?”

“Yes, it’s me!” he gasped.“You’re in danger!El, where are you?”

“Where are _you_?” she asked, fumbling to get her thoughts in order.

“We’re, um, we’re in Boston, I think.Near Boston anyway.Some motel on the highway.But we’ll be in Bath tomorrow!Are you at home?Is Will with you?”

El’s heart went cold.Mike was in Boston?And coming to Maine?With the Upside Down roaming the woods and planning to kill her and everyone around her?

“No!” she shouted, louder than she had intended.There was a shocked silence on the other end of the line.“No,” she said again, more softly.“No, I’m not at home and Will isn’t with me.And Mike, you can’t be here.”

The silence stretched down the line for a while and then Mike spoke.His voice sounded thick, gravelly, though perhaps that was just the static.“El, I know you don’t want to see me.I get that.But you’re in danger.The Gate opened again.The Upside Down came through.”

“I know,” El said softly.

There was that shocked silence again.“You know?” Mike said at last.Even over the line she could hear the worry in his voice.

“I saw them,” El said, “Yesterday.A demogorgon and a demodog.I know they’re coming for me, Mike.That’s why I’m not at home.That’s why the Byers aren’t with me.”She took a deep breath.“You need to stay away, Mike.They’re coming to kill me, and if you don’t stay away, they’ll kill you too.”

She thought her voice sounded amazingly calm given her world was coming apart all around her.

“No way,” Mike said.The firmness in his voice reminded her:this was the boy who pulled people out of the freezing rain and hid them from his parents and fled from the government and jumped off cliffs to keep his friends safe.“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone, El.I’m not going to let those things hurt you.”

“Mike, please,” she whimpered. 

“El, we’re coming to help you,” he said.“Me and Dustin and Steve.You can’t face those things alone.”

“Mike...” she pleaded. 

“El, you need our help, you don’t have your powers anymore—”

“I know!” she screamed.She didn’t care if the Upside Down heard her. Her voice was so anguished that Mike went quiet.

He’d thrown it right in her face.She knew she wasn’t special anymore.Why did he have to rub her nose in it?

“I know,” she said, her voice soft again.“I know I don’t have my powers, Mike.You don’t need to remind me.”

There was static for a moment.“El…” Mike said and then his voice trailed off.

“Mike, you need to stay away,” El said again.“Don’t try to find me.Don’t look for me.I don’t want you or Will or Dustin or anyone else to be hurt because of me.This is my fight, Mike.”

“El, I’m not going to let you—” he started but she cut him off.

“This isn’t your choice, Mike,” she said sternly.Though it broke her heart, she made her voice harsh and angry.“I stopped talking to you.I told you to stop writing me.We’re through, Mike.Stay away from me.”

“El!” he cried, but she cut the line and turned the Supercom off.Then she slumped into the blankets, sobbing at the awful valley she’d cut into her own heart.


	16. The Reunion

**Bath, Maine - The Byers House**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

It was noon on Monday when the Land Yacht rolled into the Byers’ driveway.Snow crunched under the big Impala’s tires.The boys stepped carefully out of the car, not sure what to expect.

Everything was quiet.The Byers’ place was small, one-story, like their old home in Hawkins but with a New England air.There was no answer when Dustin knocked on the door.

“Should we go around back?” Dustin wondered.“Or maybe just bust in the front?”

Steve surveyed the yard.“There aren’t any cars here.It could be they’re still out.Maybe we hold off on the breaking and entering until we know for sure what’s going on.”

Just then a green Pinto turned off the road and pulled into the drive.Joyce and Will Byers got out, their eyes wide.

“Mike?Dustin?”Will gasped.

“Steve?” Joyce asked.“What are you doing here?”

“We’re looking for El,” Mike answered.

Will looked at the ground.Joyce covered her mouth and started crying.

* * *

Inside the house, sitting around the coffee table, Joyce broke it down for them.El’s troubles at school.The note she left when she ran away. 

The Byers had searched Bath for her since Sunday morning.They’d checked all the stores and restaurants she liked, all the places on the docks where she would watch the ships.They asked around at the bus station and the ferry line.They’d even gone back to the museum she liked so much.

“I knew she didn’t like school, but I had no idea it was so bad that she’d run away,” Joyce sobbed.“Did she call you?Is that how you knew to come?”

“Um,” Mike said.He didn’t want to make Joyce feel even worse.“Not exactly…”

The front door opened.“No luck downtown,” Jonathan announced, then he paused when he saw the trio sitting in the living room.

“Hey,” Dustin and Mike said.Steve gave a brief wave.Despite their earlier feuding over Nancy, Mike knew that Jonathan and Steve had made some sort of peace with one another.Battling side by side against the forces of evil had a tendency to do that.

“What are you guys doing here?” Jonathan asked.

“I’ve been asking the same thing,” Joyce told him.“Do your parents know you’re here?” she asked the boys.

“Uh…” Dustin began.

“Sort of,” Mike said.“We told my parents that Steve was driving me here so I could spend some time with Will and… and El… before we all drove back to Hawkins for Christmas.”

“And my mom thinks Steve is driving me to Utah to see Suzie,” said Dustin.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow.“Your parents didn’t think it was weird that Steve was willing to chauffeur you around the country?”

“Dude,” Steve said, “welcome to my life. The Wheelers and the Sinclairs and Mrs. Henderson have me on speed dial. Mrs. Sinclair actually called me a ‘good care-giver’ last week.” He sighed. “I should put that on a business card.”

“So what are you really doing here?” Will asked.

Mike took a deep breath.He had to tell them sometime.“We’re here to save El.”

* * *

Now it was Mike’s turn to break it down.The Gate.The footprints.The Upside Down stalking the woods of Maine.The call with El on the Supercom. 

The Byers listened with growing horror.

“El didn’t run away because of school,” Mike finished.“She ran away because the Upside Down followed her here.She ran away because the Upside Down is trying to kill her.”

For a moment they all were silent.

“Well we need to go get her!” Joyce exploded.

“She won’t tell us where she is,” Mike said.“She’s trying to protect us.She thinks if she keeps us away, we’ll be safe.”

“Well that’s stupid!” Will shouted.“There’s no way we’re going to let her face those things on her own – even if she had her powers, which she doesn’t!”

“I know,” said Mike, “that’s why we’re going to find her.We just have to get out there and start looking.”He was surprised how calm he was acting.Either he’d gotten comfortable with battling cosmic terrors from another dimension, or he’d taken so many blows to his psyche recently that he was in shock.Flip a coin on that one. 

“We’ve _been_ looking,” Jonathan said.“She’s nowhere to be found.”

“Then you’re not looking in the right place,” Mike said angrily.

Joyce grabbed up her car keys.“Well, we’re not going to find her sitting around here.Let’s get back out there.”There was a chorus of assents from Will and Jonathan.

“You can’t,” Steve said.

The entire Byers clan looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.

“What?” demanded Joyce.

“Yeah, what dude?” Dustin said.“The more the merrier, I’m thinking.”

Steve shook his head.“You can’t.”

“Try to stop me!” Joyce hissed at him.“She’s my daughter!She’s Jim Hopper’s daughter!Those things want to kill Eleven and I’m not going to let that happen!”

“How can we be sure they’re after Eleven?” Steve asked quietly.His eyes flicked to Will.

Joyce froze.Jonathan and Dustin, shouting just a moment before, grew quiet.Mike looked at Will in alarm. 

“Oh my god,” Joyce whimpered, her hand to her mouth.“Oh my god.”

“What?” Will said. “No!Why would they be coming for me?”

Jonathan shook his head sadly.“Steve’s right,” he admitted.“They took you before, Will.You have a connection to the Mind Flayer.”

“No, no,” Joyce moaned, reaching out to her son to stroke his hair, then wrap him in her arms.

“It’s okay,” Will assured her, but there was fear in the gentle boy’s eyes.He hugged his mother tightly.

Mike’s stomach knotted as he considered Steve’s words.The older boy was right.Mike was so obsessed with El that it hadn’t even occurred to him that the Upside Down might want someone else.Steve, with a clearer head, not blinded by love, had seen it where Mike couldn’t. 

The Upside Down could be after Will instead of Eleven.Or maybe it wanted them both.

“We’ll look for El,” Steve said.“Me and Mike and Dustin.The three of you need to stay here.And you,” Steve said to Will, “you need to turn this place into a real Castle Byers.If those things show up, you can’t let them get through.”

“Pictures!” Dustin said suddenly.“We’ll need pictures of Eleven to show people and try to find her.”

“We’ve got some,” Jonathan said, “We’ve been showing them all over town.”The Byers pulled photos from their pockets, in color and black and white.They passed them out to the searchers.

“Do you still have Hopper’s things?”Steve asked Joyce.She mumbled assent, distracted, still working through the thought of another threat to her son.

“Do you still have his gun?” Steve asked.

“No,” Joyce whispered.She blinked, coming back into the moment.“The police took it back after…”

Jonathan laid a calming hand on his mother’s shoulder.“There’s a rifle in the basement,” he said.“If those things come, we’ll be ready.”

They split up into their separate groups then, sadness and determination and fear written on their faces.

“We’ll find El,” Mike said to the Byers, but just as much to himself.“We’ll find her and we’ll bring her back and then we’ll all face those things.Together.I promise.”

Outside, the three boys gathered around Steve’s Impala.“What now?” asked Dustin.“Where do we look?The Byers checked all the obvious places.It’s a needle in a haystack now and we don’t know anything about Bath.”

“There’s one place the Byers didn’t check,” said Mike.“We start there.”


	17. The Rundown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly longer chapter than most - this ends Act 2.

**Bath, Maine - Morse High School**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

They asked around at the schoolyard that afternoon, among the milling kids waiting for the buses or unlocking their bikes or just laughing and talking.They showed Eleven’s picture, again and again:

— “Have you seen this girl?”

— “Hi, have you seen her?She goes to school here.”

— “Hey, you know this girl?This one in the picture?Have you seen her?”

— “We’re looking for a girl, she’s a student here.”

All the answers were some variation on “No, don’t know her,” or “Yeah, I think I’ve seen her, but not for a while.” 

One boy smirked.“You mean the freak?Haven’t seen her for like a week, man.”Mike wanted to punch him, but Steve grabbed Mike’s arm and held him still while the boy walked away.

The buses pulled out and the schoolyard emptied.There were only a few kids left.The trio gathered, heads down, frustrated.Mike wondered where to look next. The Byers had checked every other place he could think of.

One of the kids approached – soft, doughy, curly black hair, glasses.“Hey, you were looking for that new girl, weren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Mike said.He showed the girl Eleven’s picture.“Do you know her?Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” said the girl.“But she hasn’t been here for a while.She used to cut classes, you know, leave school a lot?But today she didn’t come to school at all.”

“Do you know where she might be?”

“I’m not sure.But I followed her once,” the girl admitted, “when she cut class.”

“Why?” blurted Steve, genuinely curious.

The girl’s eyes flicked to his handsome face and pretty hair and then she looked away.“She was nice to me.Not many people are.And I guess I felt bad for her.The kids here can be pretty mean if you’re different.”

Mike stared at the ground, miserable. 

Maybe things would have been different if he’d been here for El, he thought.He should have been helping her with school.Instead he’d been stuck twelve hundred miles away with only one phone call a week to reach her.She’d had to figure it all out on her own, trying to catch up on seven years’ worth of studies in seven weeks.

No wonder she started cutting classes.She’d probably fallen in with a bad crowd. 

Unbidden, an image formed in Mike’s mind of a guy - a bad boy - with a leather jacket and ripped jeans, a handsome face and rakish haircut and whiplash smile.A Billy Hargrove type, the exact opposite of bookish, awkward, comfortably suburban Mike Wheeler.The kind of guy who seemed to fascinate girls, a guy who would fascinate El with his differences from everything she’d known before…

Mike blinked and the image dissolved.He didn’t have time to wallow in his insecurities.However El felt about him - whoever might be in her life now - he still loved her and she was in danger and he had to save her if he could.

“Where did she go?” asked Dustin.

“When I followed her?There’s an island in the river, not too far from here.You take a spur off the main road.It goes through the woods for a while and then there’s this rickety bridge that gets you to the island.That’s where she went.”

“Do you know why?” asked Steve.

“No,” said the girl.“It’s quiet, I guess.There’s nobody around and you can be alone.There’s some old mansion on the island. It’s a museum now.They close it for the winter though.”

That had to be it.El wouldn’t think twice about breaking into an empty building.

“Thanks,” said Dustin. 

The girl shrugged.“I hope you find her.She’s had a tough time.I’m glad she has friends after all.”

* * *

As Steve drove them down the main road toward the forest turn-off, Dustin once again watched Mike.The black-haired boy had been very quiet since his talk with El on the Supercom.He wasn’t brooding, like he had during the drive from Hawkins, but he was thoughtful and kind of sad.

It had been a tough conversation last night.Mike and El had been pretty clearly broken up before, but now there was no doubt.She’d said they were through and there was norationalizing your way out of that one.

Something nagged at Dustin though.El’s words didn’t _fit_.It was El who called Mike on the Supercom last night, not the other way around.Granted, she hadn’t expected him to answer, but that didn’t really seem in line with dumping his ass.

El’s voice hadn’t sounded like someone who was done either.Dustin could hear the emotion bleeding through when she spoke.He was an expert now at listening to girls’ voices on the radio, and he’d become a Mormon and move to Utah if Suzie ever said his name the way El said Mike’s.

Dustin genuinely had no idea what was going on with El and Mike.Their relationship had baffled him ever since they fell in love the night they met in the rain.This was another one for the list of mysteries.

He regarded his friend as the Impala rumbled along.Mike looked out the window, his long, slender fingers gently tapping a rhythm on the seat as they closed the final few miles.

Dustin sometimes wondered what Eleven saw in Mike. 

He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, Dustin figured, but he was no Tom Cruise or Rick Springfield or even Steve Harrington.He was hardly muscled like Schwarzenegger.Mike was positively scrawny, mainly because everything he ate seemed to go into making him taller rather than wider.He had a big nose and a mouth that was too wide for his face.The girls didn’t exactly swoon when he walked by.

It couldn’t have been Mike’s pursuits either.There must be a planet somewhere in the universe where being good at technology and video games and D&D got the girls all hot and bothered, but it certainly wasn’t this planet.Mike was good in school, usually trading places with Dustin for top of the class, but you never heard the girls whispering at their lockers about the size of a guy’s GPA.

But Mike’s awkward appearance and uncontested title of king of the nerds never seemed to bother El.Before she moved to Bath, it practically took the jaws of life to pry her lips off him.Clearly something was working for the guy.

“Steve, can’t this thing go any faster?” Mike said.“El could be facing the Upside Down right now, we have to hurry!”

“There’s a lot of snow and ice on the road, Wheeler,” Steve answered calmly, “I’m going as fast as I can.”

And that was it, Dustin thought.That’s what El saw in Mike.

Mike was the guy who charged headlong into danger to save everyone else. 

Mike was the guy who led the Party into the Mind Flayer’s tunnels _as a diversion_ so El could close the gate.Mike was the guy who set the sauna trap that caught Billy Hargrove.Mike was the guy who ran from the United States government to keep El safe from harm. 

Mike was the guy who jumped to certain death in a quarry to save a friend.

Mike Wheeler would make the sacrifice play.He’d been doing it without flinching since he was twelve years old.

Dustin liked to give his friends a hard time.He liked to tease them and poke them.But he would put hand on heart and tell anyone who asked that scrawny, awkward, king of the nerds Mike Wheeler was the bravest son of a bitch he’d ever met in his entire life.

And Eleven, bless her heart, never saw the big nose or the wide mouth or the knobby knees or the scrawny frame.The only thing Eleven saw was the most decent, most self-sacrificing guy on the face of the earth.Who incidentally put her on a pedestal that reached all the way to the stars.

Maybe love wasn’t blind, Dustin thought.Maybe it just saw what mattered.

* * *

The Land Yacht plowed easily through the snow on the forest road and the one-lane bridge.It struggled when they reached the switch-back up the steep wooded slopes of the island.Mike, riding shotgun, had a death grip on the Impala’s dashboard, convinced they were about to fishtail off the road and plummet into the river.The car’s enormous weight was oddly a blessing, packing the snow and giving the tires grip to power ahead.

It wasn’t until they got to the top of the plateau and made their way through the last stretch of woods that they had to give up.About three hundred yards short of the tree line, the snow got too deep to go any further.Steve put the big machine in park.“Okay guys, we walk from here,” he said.

The three of them piled out of the car, grabbing their bags.Mike scanned the forest around them but there was only the stark outline of trees against snow in the mid-afternoon sun.Birds fluttered in the bare branches, warbling carelessly. 

There was a single pair of footprints in the snow ahead of them, following the road through the forest.Mike didn’t know much about tracking – Lucas was the Ranger in the Party – but he thought the prints might be about right for a small teenage girl wearing Converse sneakers.

Steve pulled a tire iron from the trunk and shrugged on his backpack.“All right, ladies – eyes open and nobody fall behind.”

They followed the tracks to the tree line.The wide snow field stretched away in front of them toward the mansion.In the daylight, the structure was a blue and white Victorian fantasy, standing over the cliffs and the water, dreaming. 

At the tree line, more tracks emerged.They were lopsided, distorted, made by an anatomy that had never evolved in this dimension.The tracks came out of the woods and followed the first pair of footprints toward the mansion.

“Oh shit,” Dustin breathed.

“They’re already here,” Mike gasped.“We’re too late.”He hesitated a moment and then he was sprinting across the snow, the backpack banging on his bony shoulders.

“Mike, what are you doing?” Dustin called. “Stop!”

“Shit.Wheeler!” Steve yelled.Then he started running too.

Mike kept going, heedless of danger.Somewhere ahead was El and so were those things and he didn’t even have a weapon but hell if he was going to stop.

He outpaced his friends, his long legs eating up the yardage and desperation lending him speed.He was dimly aware of Steve following behind, shouting, and further back was Dustin, calling him as well.

Mike reached the porch, clearing the steps in one leap, and then he was hammering on the front door.He pulled desperately at the handle but it was locked.

“El!” he shouted, “El, where are you?El!” 

He unslung his backpack, thinking maybe he would break a window with it.His mind was just registering the two by fours behind the panes when he heard the lock turn on the front door.Harrington climbed onto the porch next to him, tire iron clutched in a white knuckle grip. 

The door swung open.

Mike’s breath caught.

It was her.It was El.For a moment all he could do was stare.

Enormous brown eyes.Short, thick, glorious auburn curls.Full, pink, pouting lips.A pointed, exquisite chin with the faintest hint of a dimple.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“El,” he breathed.

“Mike,” she whispered and the sorrow in her tone struck him like a physical blow.“Mike, what are you doing here?”

“El,” he started, but her face and her voice and her sadness took his words away.

“Mike, I told you to stay away,” she said.A tear spilled down her cheek.“Mike, now they’re going to kill you too.”


	18. The Trap

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

El could hardly contain her grief.She’d failed.Somehow Mike had found her and he’d brought Dustin and Steve with him and now all three boys were going to die here.

Even in her misery, Mike took her breath away.She’d forgotten how incredibly handsome he was.She had pictures of him of course, and her memories, but they were nothing like the real thing. 

His beautiful brown eyes that saw into her soul.His strong pointed chin and fine high cheekbones.Cascading waves of long, thick black hair that she longed to run her fingers through.He was lean and rangy like a greyhound and goodness, it was only two months since she’d seen him, but she was sure he’d gotten even taller.His height always made her feel small and safe and protected, and all she could think was that she’d love to be wrapped in his arms, _right now_.

But she couldn’t.She had to get him to leave, immediately, and then maybe he and the other boys might get away.They still had a chance.They didn’t have to die.

“Mike, you shouldn’t have come,” she gasped.“Please, you have to go.”

He shook his head, almost angry, the way he got with the Party when he was tired of their arguments and needed them to see it his way.She loved it when he was assertive that way, but the downside was that he could be so frustratingly stubborn.

“El, I’m happy to go,” he said.“With you.Our car is just over there in the trees.Let’s get out of here and get back to the Byers.We’ll figure things out from there.”

“I can’t,” she told him.“I won’t go with you, Mike.”

Her heart broke at the pain that flashed across his face.She could see him push past it and he took a deep breath.“El, I know you don’t want to see me.I know you don’t want me around.I get it.But what you think of me doesn’t matter right now – I just need to get you somewhere safe.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks.She wasn’t sobbing, just crying endlessly without sound.“I’m sorry,” she said.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she was apologizing for or maybe she was apologizing for all of it.For not leaving with him.For losing her powers.For moving away.For failing at school.For closing him out.For saying they were through.

For not being good enough anymore.

“El…” Mike said softly and then Dustin scrambled up on the porch.“Inside!” the curly-haired boy yelled.“Everyone inside!”

Mike and Steve looked around wildly.“What is it?” Steve asked. 

“Well,” Dustin panted, “while you and Mike were breaking the land speed record, I had time to see that those Upside Down tracks lead under the porch!They’re under the goddamn house!”

“Shit!” Steve shouted.“Inside, everyone!Wheeler!Come on, you and your squeeze can work this out later.”The older boy bundled them all into the house, slammed the door and locked it.

For a moment the three boys stood by the door, listening intently.El crossed over to one of the big overstuffed couches and sat down.

“They’re waiting,” she said.

The boys turned to look at her.

“What?” Dustin said.

“The Upside Down,” she murmured.“They’re waiting.They might come later today or they might come tonight.But they won’t come right now.”

The boys were quiet for a moment.“Why not?” Mike finally asked.

El shrugged.“They want us to feel hunted.They think it’s more fun that way.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dustin whispered.

“Are… are you sure?”Mike asked.

El got off the couch and led the boys from window to window.“They roam,” she told them.She pointed through the gaps in the two by fours at tracks in the snow. “They go to the garage, and then they go under the porch, and then they go into the woods.Then they come back.”She shrugged sadly.“They’re waiting.”

“So… they’re not under the house?” Dustin asked.

“I don’t think so,” said El.“The last time I saw, they were in the woods.But that was a while ago.”

“Well, they can wait all they want,” Steve said.“If they’re doing some kind of creepy stalker thing, maybe that’s our chance to get back to the car and get the hell out of here.”

“Right,” Dustin said, “now that we’ve got El, we can make a run for it.But as a group this time – no sprinting ahead, okay Carl Lewis?”He scowled at Mike.

“I’m not going,” El said softly.

“Come on, Eleven,” Steve said, “you know we didn’t come all the way here just to leave you behind.”

“I’m not going,” she repeated.“The Upside Down wants me.It would love to kill you too, but if you leave now, you should be safe.”

The boys exchanged glances, unprepared for El’s resistance and looking for ideas.They were drawing a blank.

“We could just grab you,” Steve said finally, “Carry you out.”

El walked over to the couch where here backpack and other gear waited and she picked up the spiked bat.She looked at Steve with eyebrow raised.

“Oh come on, you wouldn’t really use that bat on us,” Steve said.“Would she?” he muttered to Dustin and Mike.

“You wouldn’t grab me and force me to leave,” she said.“What would you do?Tie me up?Keep me locked in a room day and night?Like they did to me in the Lab?”

Mike sighed.“Of course we wouldn’t, El.Come on.Please.Please just come with us.”

“They’re after me, not you,” she said again.“Please go, Mike.Go back to the Byers.Go back to Will.”

“El, they might be after Will too,” Dustin said softly.

El froze.Will?That wasn’t...Why would they…?

Despite all that had happened, despite the letter and her words and her sorrow and her pain, El’s eyes went instinctively to Mike, searching his face for guidance.Her heart sank as he nodded sadly.

Will.He’d been the Mind Flayer’s prisoner once and the Mind Flayer’s vehicle in this world after that.Of course they would come for him too.

It felt like the walls were closing in around her, like the jaws of a trap springing shut.She’d wanted this to be simple.Not easy, but simple.Her and the Mind Flayer, a battle to the end, and no one else would get hurt.It wasn’t turning out simple at all.

“El,” Mike said, imploring her.“I know you want to do the right thing.I know you’re trying to protect everybody – save everybody.You’ve saved everybody so many times before and you came here all alone ready to do it again.But we have to fight this one together, El.”

“You told us yourself,” he continued, “when you went into Billy’s mind, that the Mind Flayer wants us all dead.You and Will the most, but the rest of us too, if it can.”

Mike’s voice broke but he kept going. “Come with us to the Byers’ house, El.We’ll fight it together, all of us.You’ve saved us so many times El, let us save you.Let’s save each other.”

His beautiful eyes searched her face, he was so desperate for her to listen, and this was the Mike that lived in her thoughts and her dreams and her heart every day and night.Her brave, brilliant, beautiful boy.Whether he loved her or not, he was looking at her like he would never leave this house without her and he would die at her side if he had to.

The boys were right.The Upside Down wouldn’t stop with her.There was only one way she could save them.There was only one way she could save _him_.

“Okay,” she whispered.“Okay, I’ll come with you.”

She walked toward Mike until they were standing awkwardly, face to face.He coughed, seemingly unsure now what to say.She looked at her shoes.

“Thanks,” he finally said.

She ached for him to hug her, to pull her into his arms so she could lay her head against his chest and hear his heart beat.But he didn’t.After everything she’d done, why would he?

Dustin gathered up El’s backpack and the silver shotgun.Steve laid a gentle hand on Mike’s shoulder.“Nice speech, Wheeler.” 

The four of them gathered at the front door.They peered out the windows through the gaps in the boards.They didn’t see anything.

“Okay,” Steve said, opening the door.“Let’s go.”

* * *

They walked as fast as they could, staying together, eyes in all directions.The snow glistened in the afternoon sun and crunched under their feet.They watched the outbuildings, the porch, the woods, every sense straining for the slightest hint of the Upside Down.

There was no movement, no sound.Just deformed tracks in the snow.

El looked worriedly at Mike.Dustin had loaded a few rounds into the shotgun, and Steve had the tire iron, and she had the bat, but Mike was unarmed.If the Upside Down came for them now, he’d be fighting it with his fists.

To be sure, if the creatures came for them now, they would all die. 

She worried that the Upside Down would kill them slowly, so it hurt. 

“Keep close,” Steve murmured, keeping a watchful eye on his young charges.“Stay frosty.Shout if you see _anything_.”

The yards went past.El scanned the field but her eyes kept drifting to Mike.She could see he was scared but he kept it in.She found herself holding her hand out to him, ever so slightly, but there so he could take it.So they could walk together, linked the way they’d always been.

He ignored it, pretending he didn’t see it.She felt her soul shutting down.After everything she’d done, after everything she’d become, how could she have thought he’d ever touch her again? 

Despite that, he stayed close to her, as if determined to be a shield if the Upside Down appeared.

She thought maybe she should tell him how she felt, that she still loved him, that she would always love him.This could be her last chance.But it wasn’t right.They were trying to escape and stay alive, and they didn’t have time for a silly, broken girl to ease the pain in her heart.

They reached the tree line. El felt the tension ease just a little.They couldn’t be far now.She saw the car then, just a few hundred yards away in the middle of the snow-covered road. 

Maybe they would make it after all.

They were about fifty yards from the big machine when Steve jerked to a halt.They all stopped.The car wasn’t… right.

The hood of the big blue and white Impala had been ripped off and it lay crumpled at the base of a tree.Long claw marks scored the vehicle, and the front tires were deflated half-shells of rubber.The radiator and chunks of the engine were scattered across the snow.

“Oh no,” breathed Mike.

“Oh shit,” whispered Dustin.

“I had twenty-four payments left on that car,” said Steve.

Dustin looked at the older boy in disbelief.

“Right,” Steve said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

They stared at the car as their hopes of escape disintegrated in front of them.

“Should we keep going?” asked Mike.

“It’s two miles just to get back to the main road.Through the woods and over that rickety bridge,” Dustin said.

“I don’t think we’ll make it,” Steve muttered.He looked at Eleven.She shook her head, sadly.

“Well, we might not make it back to the _house_ if we don’t start moving somewhere,” Mike said.

“Wheeler makes a good point,” said Steve. “Come on, back to the house, hurry!”

They turned and started back up the road.Their fast walk quickly turned into a trot and then into a run.

Off in the woods to their right, birds burst from their perches and soared into the sky.A streak of white and pink flashed among the trees.

“Shit!” Steve yelled.“Go!Go!Wheeler, stick with El!”Steve drifted back and to the right, running next to Dustin.

There was another flash in the trees off to their left, a low silhouette of brown and green.

The four teens were in the field now, trying to stay in the tracks, using the packed snow for more speed.They were halfway across the field when the Upside Down burst from the trees, baying in pursuit.

“Come on, Henderson,” Steve shouted, “no time for sight-seeing!”

The howls sounded behind them, drawing closer with every second.

El was at the porch first, Mike right behind her.They yanked open the door and scrambled inside.

The other two boys were still running, the gap between them and the Upside Down closing – twenty yards, fifteen yards, ten…

Dustin was up the stairs, Steve beside him, and the two boys dove into the living room.Mike slammed the door and shot the bolt and the demodog rammed into the solid oak with a bang that rattled the hinges.There was the stomp of massive footsteps on the stairs, then another bang, even louder, as the demogorgon pounded the door with its huge fist.

“Get back,” Eleven yelled, “Get away from the door!”She flicked open her lighter and snapped the flame to life.

“Move, move, move!” Dustin yelled and all three boys scrambled away from the firework bombs as El lifted the fuse.

The banging stopped.

The four teens waited, petrified, eyes flicking from the door to the boarded-up windows and back.Ten seconds passed.Thirty seconds.A minute.

El closed her lighter.

“Are they gone?”Dustin asked.

“I think so,” said Mike.He looked at Eleven and she nodded.

“They were trying to scare us,” she said.

“Well, they sure did a good job,” Steve groaned.“I can’t wait to see what they’re like when they’re serious.”

El turned away and covered her eyes, filled with grief.It hadn’t worked.They hadn’t escaped.The boys were trapped here with her and soon the Upside Down would come to kill them all.


	19. The Line

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**  
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

“What do we do now?”Mike asked, keeping the panic out of his voice through sheer force of will.“We can’t just sit here and wait for those things to come.And we’re not driving out unless there’s a car in that garage.”

He gave El an inquiring look but she shook her head.“Just storage,” she said.

“We should call for help,” Dustin blurted.“Call the cops or the army or Chuck Norris or something!”

“You know, that’s a good idea,” Steve said.“The cops I mean. I’m guessing Chuck Norris is busy.Is there a phone somewhere?”

“Yes,” said El.She led them to a side room that had been converted into an office for the museum.

Dustin grabbed the phone and dialed. 

“Hello, 911?Yes, thank god, you’ve got to help us!We’re located at…” He looked around the room, realizing he didn’t actually know where they were.

“The Whateley mansion,” El said.

“The Whateley mansion!”Dustin repeated.“It’s on an island in the…” He paused again.

“Kennebec River,” El told him.

“Kennebec River!” he shouted.“You’ve gotta hurry, send help, something’s trying to kill us—.”He stopped and looked at the receiver.

“What?” asked Mike.

“The line went dead,” Dustin told him.“The line went dead!”

“It was those things,” Steve said.“They cut it.” 

“Wait,” said Mike, grasping at straws, “maybe it was just that the wire broke.You know, because of the snow or because a pole fell or... something.”

“They like to stalk you,” Eleven said quietly.The three boys turned to look at her.“It was them.They’re isolating us.They’re trying to scare us again.They want us to be afraid before we die.” 

“That’s great,” Steve said.“Horrific monsters from the depths of space and time who also like to play with their food.”

Mike thought furiously.“Do you think the dispatcher heard enough?” he asked Dustin.

The curly-haired boy swallowed hard.“I don’t know.Maybe.”

“We can’t count on it then,” Mike said, “So we’ll have to plan as if no one’s coming.” 

Mike paced the room, tapping his chin.“We know there’s two of them.The demodog’s weaker, so if we focus our attacks on it first, we can take it down.Quickly.That will let us gang up on the demogorgon.We can beat it with numbers.” 

Mike was moving naturally into problem-solving mode, the way he always did in a crisis.El watched him, positively glowing at the way he took charge.

He glanced over at her and she jerked her eyes to the floor, blushing.She’d been staring at him like a lovesick schoolgirl.No surprise, she supposed, since that’s exactly what she was.She hoped he hadn’t noticed.

“This shotgun should help,” Dustin smiled, tapping the silver barrel.“It’s a beaut.A custom Winchester. Five in the magazine.Look at all that engraving.”

“That is nice,” Steve said.“Really nice.Where’d you get it, El?”

“From the study,” she said.“It used to belong to Mr. Whateley.”

“Cool,” said Dustin, but Steve frowned.

“Wait a minute, you mean it was part of an exhibit?”

El nodded, unsure why the older boy was suddenly so agitated.

“Shit.Henderson, unload that thing, now.It’s a museum piece.We don’t know if they’ve maintained it.We don’t even know if it works.”

“It’s shiny,” El pointed out.Clearly someone had been taking care of it.

“Yeah, it looks pretty well maintained,” agreed Mike.“What’s the big deal, Steve?We can test it if you want.”

“Are you kidding, Wheeler?If that thing hasn’t been maintained and it backfires, you’ll be lucky if the only thing you lose is your fingers.It might blow your face off.”He took the shotgun from Dustin and carefully emptied the magazine.“Only use this thing in an emergency.An absolute _emergency_, hear me? If there’s no other choice.”

The younger teens were suitably chastened.“Thanks Steve,” Dustin mumbled.

“Yeah, thanks Steve,” said Mike, clearing his throat.He paused for a moment and then moved back into planning mode.“So, um, right – armaments.Let’s see what we’ve got.”

At a gesture from Mike, the group laid their weapons out on the floor and then crouched around the little armory. 

“So, it looks like we’ve got... a spiked baseball bat, a shotgun that may or may not work, and a tire iron.”

“What else did you bring?” El asked.“Besides the tire iron?”

The boys exchanged glances and shifted uncomfortably.

El frowned.“You brought some other weapons, right?”

There was more awkward shuffling.Dustin took off his hat and scratched the top of his head.“We, uh, we were in a hurry?”

“You came all the way from Hawkins to fight the Upside Down by my side, and all you brought was a tire iron.”It was a statement, not a question.El’s big eyes took in all three of the boys.

Steve coughed.“When you say it out loud like that, it sounds kind of stupid.”

El’s expressionless stare spoke volumes.She reached into her backpack and added the hunting knife to the pile.

“Thanks, El,” Mike said.Her eyes flicked to his.He smiled at her, just a little, then quickly looked away.She smiled too, shyly, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t believe he didn’t hear it.

Steve recovered his poise.“Great.Four of us, four weapons.I’ll take the bat.Wheeler, you’ve got the gun.El takes the tire iron and Henderson has the knife.”

El and Mike reached for their weapons at the same time and their hands brushed.They jerked them apart like they’d touched a live wire.

“Sorry,” Mike whispered, his voice gentle.

“Sorry,” El said, blushing furiously.

Steve smiled at the familiar weight of the bat in his hand.Then he noticed that Dustin hadn’t picked up the knife.

“What is it?” Steve asked him.

“Shouldn’t we have a vote or something on who gets what?”

Steve couldn’t keep the surprise off his face.“But I always get the bat.”

“Okay, fine,” said Dustin, as if speaking to a small child, “But why does Mike get the gun and I get the knife?”

Steve rolled his eyes.“Because rumor has it you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.If the gun actually works, Wheeler should shoot it.Besides, the knife is cool.It’s badass.”

“It just doesn’t seem fair that you get to pass them out like you’re the weapons czar or something,” Dustin huffed.“Just because you’re older.”

Steve stared at him, speechless.

“You can have the tire iron if you want,” El offered, trying to play peacemaker.

Dustin considered.“Um… okay.Thanks, El.”They exchanged weapons.“Awesome.Yeah, tire iron.”Dustin gripped it and gave it a little practice swing.El clipped the hunting knife to her belt.

Mike watched the bickering with the suffering patience of a saint.Nothing was ever easy with this bunch.“We should see what kind of defenses we’ve got,” he told them.Weapons sorted, the four of them went back into the living room and looked around, surveying El’s preparations.

“Firework bombs and a gasoline trap.Doors and windows boarded up so the only easy way in leads right to it.”Mike sounded impressed.“Nice job, El.”

“Thanks,” she said, fidgeting with nervous pleasure at his compliment and not quite knowing what to do.Mike’s eyes met hers and this time he was the one who blushed.

Dustin looked back and forth between the two of them and rolled his eyes.“Jesus Christ,” he muttered to Steve. But Steve wasn’t listening.

The older boy looked disappointed somehow.He kept looking around the living room and crossing and uncrossing his arms.

“What is it?” Dustin asked.

“It’s nothing.”Steve put his hands on his hips and kicked idly at the floor.

Now Mike was curious.“What’s going on?”

Steve shrugged.“Well, it’s just...you know, usually when we build defenses against the Upside Down, we do it together.You know, like a team.” 

Mike looked baffled.“What?”

“Blocking the windows, barricading the doors, stacking furniture... it’s a team thing, right?”The younger teens stared at him.“We kind of bonded over it,” Steve muttered to himself, but loud enough to hear.

“Are you serious, dude?” Dustin asked.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Steve said, “this is a great job.Really professional. But El basically finished it all and there’s nothing left for us to do.” He shrugged. “I just... I missed out last time.Because I was drugged by the Russians.”

Now all three of the young teens were giving him unbelieving looks.

“Steve, what the f—Are you kidding me?” Mike exclaimed.

“Well, give me a break, Wheeler!” Steve said.“My car just got totaled, the girl of my dreams turns out to be a lesbian, and my career prospects involve making minimum wage down at the video store!As strange as it may sound, _this_—” he waved his hand at the mansion, the boarded windows, the bat, “is the part of my life that actually works, okay?”

The kids were shocked into silence by Steve’s outburst.Then Eleven frowned at the unfamiliar word and looked instinctively to Mike.“Lesbian?”

Mike’s eyebrows shot up so high they almost disappeared into his hairline.“Uh...”

Dustin clapped a hand on his shoulder.“I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you explain that one to her. But now’s not the time.”The curly-haired boy approached his older friend.“Sorry, Steve.Look, it’s a good job, but I’m sure there’s some more prep we could do.El couldn’t move any of these big couches so I’m sure we could stack some furniture...”

Steve smiled ruefully.  He looked calmer, as if sharing his problems had lightened them. “Thanks Henderson.Sorry about all that. I’m probably just getting over the car.I’m pretty sure my comprehensive auto insurance doesn’t cover monster attacks.I admit I haven’t read the whole policy…”

Dustin gave Steve a friendly nudge on the shoulder.“No worries.I get it.”

“Yeah.” Steve took a breath and shook his head, as if clearing it.“Okay.So.The Upside Down will be coming – maybe not now, but soon.Like Wheeler says, we need to be as prepared as we can be.El did a great job, but we can stack some furniture, check these boards…” 

The older boy paused.Dustin was listening to him, but Mike kept looking nervously at the ground and then at El and El kept looking nervously at the ground and then at Mike.

Steve sighed.When he spoke his voice was gentle.“Mike, El... why don’t you two go upstairs and, uh, check around, see if there’s something up there that could help us.Some more weapons or something.Dustin and I will make sure everything’s secure down here.”

“Um, sure,” Mike said.He looked hesitantly at Eleven.“Um, El, should we go have a look?”

“Okay,” she said softly.

Dustin and Steve watched as the two went upstairs.Mike and El didn’t make eye contact.They walked close together but didn’t touch.

“Right,” Steve told Dustin, “let’s check out those boards on the windows, make sure they’ll hold.”

Dustin didn’t move but gave his friend an appraising look.“You know, you can be a pretty thoughtful guy.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Steve joked.Then he shrugged.“I don’t know.They clearly need to talk.But if the last thing Wheeler hears in his life is that El dropped him for another guy, I don’t think he’s going to thank me.”


	20. The Prison

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**  
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

The skies grew darker and it started snowing again.Inside, Dustin was sweating as he and Steve stacked furniture against the windows.The couches and chairs were big, blocky pieces.They made a good backstop to the boards El had put up. 

The two of them also set furniture around the firework trap, hoping to block the Upside Down into the blast zone and screen off the explosion from the rest of the room.They weren’t actually sure what happened when you lit up three cans of gasoline.Dustin was a little worried they’d go up in the same fireball as the demogorgon.

As they shifted another couch into place, Dustin looked at the stairs.Mike and El had been gone for some time.

“I wonder how they’re doing up there,” he said.

“No one’s yelling for help,” Steve replied, “so I assume the Upside Down hasn’t found them.Hopefully they’re working it out, whatever it is.”They set the couch down and now Steve looked at the stairs.“Their relationship seems pretty… intense… for kids that young.No offense.”

“None taken,” Dustin said.“I totally agree.I mean, I really like Suzie, she’s great.But no way we’re that serious.I’ve known married people less serious than Mike and El.”

It was definitely an intense and baffling relationship.Just as he wondered what El saw in Mike, Dustin sometimes wondered what Mike saw in El.

She was pretty, he supposed.She wasn’t a bombshell or drop-dead gorgeous.You wouldn’t turn to watch her as she walked by.But she was pretty.Dustin personally preferred girls a bit fuller figured, like Suzie, but maybe Mike liked them on the skinny side.Mike was a skinny guy himself, so that would make sense.Still, it hardly felt like enough to drive Mike’s obsessive dedication.

It probably wasn’t her interests either.As far as he could tell, El didn’t really have any.Dustin had the vague impression that she liked clothes and make-up, like many girls her age.But she wasn’t at all like Suzie, who was a rocket scientist super genius who loved fantasy and science fiction.Dustin counted his blessings every day that he’d found a girl like that.

No, El’s main hobby seemed to be trying to understand the strange world she’d been forced into, unprepared, when she was twelve years old.She was doing a lot of catching up and it took almost all of her time.Hell, she hadn’t even known what a friend was when they first met her.Delving into the finer points of chemistry or electronics or Star Wars wasn’t exactly top of her priority list.

Mike seemed to enjoy teaching her about this new world she found herself in, so Dustin supposed they connected in that space.It still didn’t feel like a basis for love.

People said opposites attract.There could be something there.Mike was a bookish, middle-class suburban guy from a Midwest nuclear family.Nice house, nice lawn, two parents, two sisters, no surprises.He was on a comfortable path to college and adulthood and a job pushing paper at some company or university.

El was born and raised in a lab where they’d barely taught her to speak English, much less educate her in anything.Her only parent for the first twelve years of her life was a sociopathic doctor who wanted to turn her into a perfect weapon.There wasn’t anything typical or comfortable about her life.El’s first taste of freedom and a chance at something better didn’t come until a monster from another dimension killed almost everyone she’d ever known.The sad thing was that it was a toss-up whether the monster or the scientists had been worse.

Dustin and Steve started stacking chairs near the firework bombs, building out the blast screen.Steve surveyed the trap.“Man, Eleven really came to play, didn’t she?She came out here all alone to lure those things away from her family and take them on by herself.That’s hard core.”

And that was it, Dustin thought.That’s what Mike saw in El.

El was the girl who charged headlong into danger to save everyone else.

El was the girl who fought an army of demodogs to keep her friends safe.El was the girl who went head to head with the Mind Flayer to close the gate.El was the girl, injured and powerless, who faced the Mind Flayer’s monster and found the real Billy Hargrove hidden under years of abuse.

El was the girl who would give up her life to save a boy she’d known for six days. 

Mike Wheeler looked at Eleven and he didn’t see a skinny, lonely, traumatized girl who didn’t understand the world around her.He saw a girl who was brave and noble and ready to sacrifice herself for the people she loved.A girl who incidentally looked at him like he’d put the stars in the sky.

Mike wasn’t in love with El because they were different, Dustin realized.Mike was in love with El because they were the same.

* * *

“You know, it’s kind of strange,” Dustin said.He and Steve were checking the two by fours on the windows they hadn’t been able to block with furniture.

Steve raised an eyebrow.“Henderson, after everything we’ve been through in the last three years, you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“I was thinking about El skipping school.You know, she’s really brave.She was ready to fight the Upside Down all alone so she could keep us safe.But she has some bad times at school and all of a sudden she’s running away?It just doesn’t seem like her.”

Steve shrugged.“Maybe it didn’t seem worth it.No one fights to stay in prison.”

“Prison?”Dustin said.“Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Well, look at it from her perspective.She has to go to this building every day and sit with a bunch of kids she doesn’t know to learn things that don’t mean anything to her.Why would she stick around?”

Dustin considered that.“I guess.”

“And you know, she probably tried hard,” Steve continued.“She probably sat there in class, trying to pay attention to what the teacher was saying, and it was all just going over her head.No matter how hard she listened, it just wasn’t connecting.”

Dustin nodded.

Steve kept talking.“And the books don’t help, you know?It’s like you’re reading them, trying to understand what they say, and you realize you’ve just read the same paragraph three times and you still don’t get it.It’s like all you’re really doing is running your eyes over the words but they don’t mean anything.”

“So what happens?” Steve asked rhetorically.“You just get used to it.Your test comes back.C minus.Another test.Another C minus.And you know what you do?You try really hard.You study your ass off.You don’t go out with your friends for an entire weekend because you want to nail the test.You read and you read and you make flashcards and you drill.”

Dustin had stopped checking the boards and was staring quietly at the older boy as Steve went on.“And you know what happens then?You get a B plus.And you’re like, alright, B plus, I can do this.And then you look over, and there’s these kids in the class—”

Steve took a deep breath.“There’s these kids in the class.You’ve seen them.They’re in every class.You look at their test, because they’ve got it laying out on their desk so everyone can see it.They got an A plus.You know, 100% or _maybe_ 99%.And they didn’t even try.They didn’t even _try_.When you took the test, you worked on it for like the entire hour and these kids, they were done in twenty minutes.And they always make a big production about it, right?They’re always all noisy and obvious about getting up and dropping their test off at the teacher’s desk, so everyone in the class knows they’re done already, and then they spend the rest of the class acting bored while everyone else keeps working.”

Dustin didn’t say anything.He was one of those kids. 

Steve kept talking.“And so you’re just like, what’s the point?Why did I try so hard?I worked my _ass_ off and these kids did better and they didn’t even try.So you’re thinking – so El’s thinking – why should I try?I’m just going to give up.I’m never going to be as good as these kids no matter what I do.She’s thinking, they’re going to be doctors and scientists and lawyers and professors and I’m going to end up working at the mall, slinging ice cream—”

He stopped.For a moment, neither of them said anything.Then Steve smiled a little, shaking his head.He went back to inspecting the boards.

Dustin was quiet for a moment.Steve was the coolest guy he knew.He idolized him.

It felt like Steve’s heart was lying on the floor. 

“You’re my best friend, Steve,” Dustin said.

Harrington looked over at him.The older boy’s eyes were wet, shining.He blinked it away.“Thanks, Henderson.”

“I mean it.You’re like my brother.We have different parents, but you’re my brother.”Dustin paused and then he stepped forward and hugged Steve.After a moment of surprise, Steve hugged him back.

“You too,” Steve said, “you’re my brother too.”

They embraced for a while, not speaking.Each boy was comfortable then, knowing that for the rest of their lives, no matter what happened, there was one person in the world who would have their back until the very end.


	21. The Talk

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**  
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

Upstairs, Mike and Eleven walked around the mansion’s library and tiptoed around each other’s hearts.

The library was a big room, its polished wood floors decorated with red and blue oriental rugs.The furniture was heavy and dark, splashed with gleaming brass fittings.A bank of windows glittered across two walls, looking out onto the woods and the icy blue water of the river.

The silence stretched as they searched for something to say.

_Mike’s good at talking_, El thought. _I’ll let him go first_.

The black-haired boy cleared his throat and El looked at him expectantly.“El,” he began, “I want you to know…”

“Yes, Mike?” she said.Her voice came out a squeak._Here it comes_, she thought._Here’s where everything ends.Here’s where Mike Wheeler tells me that he doesn’t love me_.

“I just wanted to say that I get it.I know you don’t want to see me anymore.That’s clear.I get it.” 

_No_, she moaned inside, _no, that’s not true.I love you and I want to see you every day, forever_.But she couldn’t say that.If they survived this awful mess, Mike had to go his own way and find someone who deserved him.

“And I wanted to say that I know how it is,” Mike continued.“I know that people who love each other, when they find themselves apart – separated by distance – well, someone else can come along.”

Her brow wrinkled a little.This was unexpected.

“And even though they don’t intend it – even though part of them still cares for the first person – they find this new person is exciting or different in a way that’s really appealing.You know, I get that.I get that.It really sucks, but I get it.”

El’s heart sank. 

It was worse than she thought.It wasn’t just that Mike didn’t love her, he was in love with someone else. 

He’d found someone better already.It had only been a few months!She felt her throat tighten, felt tears welling up in her eyes and she desperately fought them back.

Was it Max?It was probably Max.El had always sensed there was something there between Mike and Max. 

Max was very pretty, with beautiful red hair, so much finer than Eleven’s boring brown.She was really good at video games, one of Mike’s favorite pastimes. 

Max was curvier, too.She had a bigger chest than El, more hips, and El had gotten the sense that boys liked that kind of thing.

Max always claimed she wasn’t interested in Mike, that she liked Lucas, but El found that hard to believe.How could Max – how could any girl – prefer any other boy over Mike?That just didn’t make sense.

Mike was still talking, she realized.Still twisting the knife in her heart. 

“The thing is El, no matter how it makes me feel, what I want more than anything else is for you to be happy.I want you to know you can tell me anything.Even this.I won’t get mad.I’ll be sad – devastated – but you can tell me.If there’s another guy.”

Eleven stared at him, baffled.Another guy?What in the world was he talking about?She must have misheard him.

Mike looked at her, waiting, but she was so confused she couldn’t think of anything to say.He sighed.“You don’t have to spare my feelings, El.I can take it.I’ll probably want to hide in a hole or something, but I can take it.” He took a deep breath.“There’s another guy, right, El?You’re in love with someone else?”

She hadn’t misheard him.Her eyes got so wide she briefly wondered if they might fall out of her head. 

“No!” she blurted.In love with someone else?The idea was patently absurd.

Now it was Mike’s turn to look baffled.“I… I don’t understand,” he said.“If there isn’t someone else, why don’t you want to see me?”

She was amazed.He really didn’t know.

“Mike,” she said, “don’t you see?You can’t love me anymore.I’m not…” She fought for words, trying to figure out how she could make it clear.She shrugged hopelessly and now she couldn’t hold the tears back and they started to spill down her cheeks. 

“I’m not special,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“I’m not _special_,” she repeated.She tapped her head for emphasis.

Mike frowned.“You mean… your powers?”

Why was he making this so hard?_Yes_, she screamed in her mind, _yes, my powers_.Now she just wanted to curl up in a whimpering ball on the floor.

Instead she gave a shuddering sigh and forced herself to talk.“I’m not special anymore, Mike.You can’t love me.You can’t love a…” 

A retard.A freak.Plain Jane Hopper.The words echoed in her head, but they hurt her too much to say to him.

She waved her hands helplessly.“I’m bad in school, Mike.The other kids pick on me.They call me names.There’s nothing I can do.They shoved me…”The shame of that memory overwhelmed her and she crumpled in on herself, sobbing.The only words she could blubber were “garbage” and “spaghetti”, which she realized probably weren’t terribly helpful.

“You don’t have to love me anymore, Mike,” she managed to choke out.“I know you’re trying to be kind but it’s okay.I’ll understand that you stopped, and I won’t be mad at you.”

Then Mike’s arms were around her and despite all her sadness, it was so good to have him hold her again.She couldn’t stop crying, but the warmth of him, the surprising strength of his thin arms, the way his hand stroked her hair and soothed her, was something she’d missed for months.

She leaned her head against his chest and soaked his shirt with tears.He held her and she burrowed in, letting the rhythmic motion of his fingers in her hair calm her.She heard his heartbeat and this was the world she wanted, only this and nothing more._Please_, she begged in her mind, and she didn’t know who she was asking, _he doesn’t have to love me but please just let me have this_.

Soon, much too soon, Mike stepped away from her, but he kept his hands on her arms, supporting her while he looked into her eyes.

“El,” he said gently, “You think I don’t love you?”He genuinely sounded surprised.

“You can’t…” she started again.She sobbed.“Mike, I’m not special.”

“El, you’re always special,” he said.He said it so sincerely that she stopped crying, surprised by the intensity in his voice.

“El, your powers... moving things with your mind, throwing bad guys around... that’s really cool, but that’s not why I love you.”

His eyes searched hers, pleading with her to hear him.

“I love you - _I love you_ \- for who you are, El. You fight. You put your life on the line. You’re so ready to sacrifice yourself for the people you care about.”

“But it’s more than that. You’re sweet and you’re thoughtful and you’re kind and you care about everyone around you. You always think about everyone but yourself.” 

His voice broke.“They treated you so badly in that lab, and that could have turned you into something awful.It could have turned you into someone who hated the world and wanted to punish it.Instead, you decided to love the world and try to save it.”

“El, you came to this mansion all alone to save Will and Joyce and Jonathan.You came here all alone to save me.That’s the person you are.I never cared about your powers, El.I just loved the girl who had them.”

Eleven suddenly realized that in all the time she’d known him, she had only once seen Mike Wheeler cry.He had been twelve years old.He’d thought she was going to die. 

He was crying now, quietly, unashamed.And because her beautiful boy cried, she cried too.

She reached up and gently brushed the tears from his cheek.Mike smiled and took her hand.

“El, you’re the bravest, most amazing girl I’ve ever known and I’ve loved you for seven hundred and seventy-one days.”

“That many?” she whispered, her voice broken with little hiccups.

“I’ve counted them,” he told her, his eyes wet and shining.“The day I found you in the woods in the rain was the first one and I’ve loved you every day after that.”

She took a deep breath.He was so beautiful.She’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“El, you lost your powers on the six hundred and fifth day that I loved you.The next day, I still loved you.”

Eleven sniffed.Mike kept talking, that gentle voice that she could listen to forever.

“You moved away on the six hundred and ninety-third day that I loved you.The next day, I still loved you.”

“Mike,” she said, but she couldn’t do more than whisper.She couldn’t stop looking into his eyes.They were deep brown and they saw into her soul.There was something welling up inside of her and she realized it was hope.

“And four days ago, El, on the seven hundred and sixty-seventh day that I loved you, I got a letter that said you didn’t want to speak to me ever again, and even after that I loved you.I still do.”

Eleven wanted to apologize, wanted to sob that she never meant it, that she’d been trying to do the right thing but she’d been wrong, wrong, wrong.She didn’t say anything but only because the hope was overwhelming her now.And the hope exploded like fireworks when Mike leaned in and kissed her.

His lips were soft but demanding, as if he was claiming her with them, and it was _so_ good.She melted, a tingling feeling starting inside her, and she knotted her hands in his thick black hair the way she’d wanted to do for months.Mike’s hands were at her waist and hip, slender but strong, holding her tightly in a way that seemed outright _possessive_ and it thrilled her. 

It occurred to El that if Mike Wheeler didn’t love her and he could still kiss her like this – kiss her so that she felt it quivering in every fiber of her body – then he must be a very, very good liar.

Mike deepened the kiss then, his lips opening hers, and she let him into her mouth.There was that sweet taste of him, and it started that warm, melting, almost liquid feeling inside her.She ached like she was missing something and had to be completed. She’d felt that a lot when Mike kissed her and this time the feeling was as strong as it had ever been. 

When they finally broke the kiss, they were both breathless.

“Wow,” Mike said.

“Wow,” El agreed.

His eyes found hers again.“El… I... do you see?Do you understand how special you are?”

She nodded, relief and hope and love mixing in her chest and swirling all around her.“Mike…” she started, and she couldn’t finish it, but only because there was so much joy that she couldn’t speak at all.

Then Mike – her beautiful, brave, brilliant boy who had counted every day that he loved her – kissed her again.He broke the kiss and took her hand and said, “Me too.”


	22. The Cavalry

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

Dustin knocked on the door to the library.

“Mike, El, get ready you two,” he called.“It’s game time.”

He didn’t hear anything and knocked again.“Guys, I hope you’re decent.I’m coming in.“

Mike and El looked up at him from the library sofa.Dustin had seen convicted felons who looked less guilty.Their faces were flushed and their lips so red and swollen that it was obvious he’d interrupted a heavy make-out session.El was straightening her blouse, and the top half of Mike’s rumpled shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open. 

_I guess there wasn’t another guy after all, _Dustin thought_. _What he said was, “Okay, love birds, get ready for action.”Looking at their flushed, sweaty faces and disheveled garments, he realized that probably wasn’t the best choice of words.“What I mean is, come on.The cops are here.”

“The cops?” Mike gasped, springing up from the couch.“The 911 dispatcher heard enough?”

“I guess,” Dustin told him.“We can see the police lights out in the woods by what’s left of the Land Yacht.They should be here soon.”

As Mike and El rearranged their clothes, Dustin couldn’t resist needling them.“So, did you guys find any weapons?”

“Um… no,” Mike admitted.

“Huh. Where were you looking?”

Both Mike and Eleven had the good grace to blush and look at the floor.

Dustin sighed.“Mike, button your shirt.Jesus Christ.”

They left the library and headed for the stairs.Dustin was in a less than charitable mood.“I can’t believe you guys.The Upside Down is lurking around outside, waiting to kill us, and you two are up here making out like it’s Friday night at the drive-in.Are you kidding me?”

Eleven looked at Dustin like he was speaking Martian.

“We might die soon,” she explained.“I wanted to kiss Mike first.”

“That seemed like a pretty good idea to me,” Mike agreed.

Dustin’s mother always told him that if he kept rolling his eyes like that, one day they’d stay that way.

Downstairs, Steve waited for them at the front door.The older boy’s eyes flicked from Mike to El and back, taking in the couple’s swollen lips and mussed hair.It was impossible to miss the way El clung to Mike’s arm and rested her chin on his shoulder at every opportunity.They might as well have been glued together.

“Wow, I can’t imagine whether you guys worked it out or not,” Steve said.“At any rate, you’re just in time.The cavalry’s here.”

They could see the red and blue lights through the stark, bare spears of the trees.The black and white Chevy Blazer left the wreckage of the Impala and churned through the snow toward the mansion.

“I never thought I’d be this happy to see the cops,” Steve said. 

The big SUV plowed through the snow, courtesy of tire chains and a powerful transmission.It rumbled easily across the field despite the thick blanket cast by the falling snow. It stopped about fifty yards from the house.

“What’s he doing?” Mike gasped.

“Shit,” said Dustin.

“Standard police procedure,” Steve groaned.“Don’t get too close if you don’t know what the situation is.He’s going to check it out from distance before he approaches the house.”

“The Upside Down is out there,” El said.

“Yeah,” Steve muttered.“It sure as hell is.”

They watched as the policeman got out of the vehicle.He was dressed in Bath PD uniform blues, with a broad brimmed black hat on his head.He was an older man, stout and solid.He surveyed the snow field, the mansion, the garage, the shed.He waited a while and then started making his way toward the house.

Over by the garage there was a hint of motion.Some snow kicked up in the air.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Dustin whispered.

“You’re not kidding,” said Steve.The older boy watched the scene outside through the gap in the two by fours, and suddenly he turned and jerked open the front door.

“Steve!” Mike gasped, but then the skinny teen nodded his head grimly. Whether it exposed their defenses or not, it was the only play.

Steve stepped out onto the porch.Dustin and Mike and El huddled in the doorway behind him.

“Officer, you’ve got to get over here!”Steve yelled.

The older man stopped where he was.He laid his hand on the butt of his gun, not pulling it but wary.

“Put your hands up, young man,” he called.“Your friends too.We got a call.What’s going on here?”

“You’re in danger!” Steve shouted to him.“You have to get over here, fast!”

“Son,” the policeman called, unbuttoning the safety strap on his holster, “I’m only going to ask you one more time, put your hands up.”

More snow churned over by the garage.

“They’re coming,” El gasped.

“Officer, please!” Steve shouted, putting up his hands.

“Step off the porch, son,” the policeman demanded.“Right now!”

The demogorgon loped through the snow, leaving the shelter of the garage, the demodog by its side. 

“Look out!” Steve yelled and then he turned to the young teens behind him, his arms wide, herding them inside the house.

The policeman started to draw his weapon.He never even saw the demogorgon.He vaguely heard a sound of footsteps and started to turn and then it was there. 

Blood spattered across the snow.

Steve slammed the door.“Away from the windows!” he yelled.

El was staring out through a crack in the two by fours and Steve grabbed her arm.He yanked her away and pulled her against him.She didn’t resist.

“Away from the windows,” Steve said softly.El and Mike and Dustin had seen people die more often than anyone ever should.They didn’t need to see it again, not if Steve could help it.

The sounds were enough.

Steve hugged his young charges tightly against him until it was over.

* * *

The four of them sat on the living room floor.It was virtually bare – Steve and Dustin had shoved every piece of furniture up against the windows or around the firework trap.

The Upside Down had gone back into hiding, the demodog slithering under the porch and the demogorgon stomping off toward the garage.The snow kept falling.

“There’s a car now,” Mike murmured.“Only fifty yards away.If we can get the keys and get to it, we can get out of here.”

“That’s a long fifty yards,” Steve observed.

They stared at the floor some more.El leaned against Mike.She noticed his shoe was untied.She tied it for him.He hugged her against him and kissed the top of her head.

“Did you notice the yellow stripes on that demodog?” Dustin asked at last.

“What?” asked Steve.

“No,” said Mike.

“Right there on his rear end,” Dustin said.

“Dustin…” said Steve.

“I think it’s Dart,” the curly-haired boy told them.

“Dustin…”Mike said.

“I know it’s Dart.”

“Don’t go there, man,” said Steve, worry creeping into his voice.

“No – Steve, Mike, trust me.I know it.It’s Dart.I recognize him.”

“Dustin, he died when El closed the gate,” Mike told him.

“We don’t know that! We can’t know for sure what happened to those demodogs. Look, I know him!I recognize those stripes.That’s D’artagnan, I’m sure of it.”

Steve sighed but nodded.They were brothers, after all.“So what are you thinking, Henderson?”

“He won’t hurt me.He won’t.I can go out there.I can get the keys.I can bring the truck up to the house and we can get out of here.”

“No way,” Mike said.“That’s suicide.”Even El shook her head.

“It’s not suicide,” Dustin insisted.“He won’t hurt me.As long as the demogorgon doesn’t come back from the garage, I’ll be safe.It’s probably digesting its meal now anyway.Now’s the time.We can get out of here.We can do it!”

“I can’t begin to express how much I hate this idea,” Steve said.

“Steve, seriously,” Dustin exclaimed.“I know Dart.I know him!He didn’t hurt me back on Halloween and he won’t hurt me now.I can do this!”

“Dustin, this idea sucks,” Mike said.

“Mike, that’s fine,” Dustin snapped.“Have you got a better one?”

Mike opened his mouth and then closed it.

No.No, he didn’t.

“It’s Sherlock Holmes, dude,” Dustin told him.“We’ve eliminated every other possibility.The only thing that remains, however improbable, is what we have to do.”

“I’m pretty sure you butchered that quote,” Mike said.

“He did,” said El.She hadn’t read much in the three years since she’d left the Lab, but one thing she did have a fondness for was Sherlock Holmes.“But I think he’s right, Mike.”

Mike opened his mouth again and closed it.Dustin nodded, victorious.Like Wheeler was going to argue with his girlfriend now.

* * *

“We do this right,” Steve insisted.“You’re in maximum danger out there, Henderson.No screwing around.You get the keys, you get into the truck, you drive it here, we run like hell.No heroics, no Rambo shit, no one tries to get on the highlight reel.If you get in trouble, I’m coming out to introduce the Upside Down to my little friend here.”He tapped the bat.

“Got it Steve,” said Dustin.

“You two,” Steve pointed at El and Mike, “you get upstairs.You’re eyes in the sky.You find a good place to watch and you tell us what’s happening.You need to watch, okay?No making out.”

“Steve,” Mike objected, deeply annoyed by the insinuation.

“Wheeler,” the older boy said, “you missed a button on your shirt.Don’t give me that I’m-so-offended shit until you fix it.”

Mike blushed and quickly started adjusting his shirt.El looked bashfully at her shoes.

“You’ve got the shotgun, Wheeler,” Steve said.“But remember, it could blow your face off.Don’t use it unless it’s an absolute_ emergency_, clear?”

“Clear,” Mike confirmed.

“Great,” Steve said.“Okay. Now let’s go bet our lives on the hope that a bloodthirsty monster remembers it was Dustin’s house pet.”

“When you say it that way, it sounds kind of stupid,” said Dustin. The stocky boy tugged his hat down low on his head. He gripped the tire iron tightly.“All right.Open the door.Let’s do this thing.”

Steve grabbed Dustin by the arm.“Henderson… you come back, alright?I mean it.”

Dustin was quiet for a moment and then he nodded.“Don’t worry, Steve.I will.I promise.”

“Everyone have their Supercoms?” Steve asked. “All right, places.” Mike took El’s hand and the two of them headed up the stairs.Dustin took a deep breath.

Steve opened the door.


	23. The Protector

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**  
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

Steve watched through a gap in the two by fours as Dustin crossed the snow.The stocky boy was moving quickly, scanning the field and keeping his tire iron ready.

Steve triggered his Supercom.“Wheeler, what’s going on?”

Mike’s voice came over the air.“All clear.No movement.Dustin, you’re good, keep going.”

Out in the snow, Dustin raised his hand and gave a thumbs up.

Steve had to give credit where it was due, the kid had a pair of big brass ones.This was practically a suicide mission, and Dustin didn’t just volunteer, it was his idea.

All these kids were like that.Dustin and Mike and El and Lucas and Max and Will and even that little snot Erica.They faced off against supernatural horror on an annual basis and they just rolled with it.Hawkins Municipal must be putting something in the water.

Steve had done some pretty badass things in the last three years.Fighting demogorgons with a bat, going into the Mind Flayer’s tunnels to protect a bunch of little shits, winning a fight against some Russian guy.That was all cool, but there was a part of Steve that felt like he was doing it just to keep up.Just to earn the admiration of these kids and be someone they could look up to.

These kids made Steve Harrington better.

Dustin was getting close to the policeman’s body.Steve held his breath.Was this crazy plan actually going to work?

The Supercom hissed again.Mike’s voice came through, higher this time, agitated.“I’ve got movement by the porch.It’s the demodog.It’s charging, Dustin, it’s charging!”

The stocky boy wheeled about as the brown beast pounded through the snow.Steve grabbed his bat and reached for the doorknob, cursing.He should have been out there with Dustin in the first place, but ironically they’d feared that would make Dart attack.Shit, this was bad, he’d never be able to close the distance in time.

Steve paused then, hand still resting on the doorknob.The demodog was slowing.Its run turned into a lope and then a slow walk as it neared Dustin.

“It’s stopping.”The relief in Mike’s voice was clear even through the static.

Dustin’s voice sounded over the airways.“I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.”

Steve keyed his device.“Be careful, Henderson.Don’t let your guard down.”

“It’s okay, Steve,” said Dustin.The boy reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a candy bar and unwrapped it for the demodog.He dropped to one knee and tossed the bar at the creature’s feet.Dart started eating.

Steve laughed, relief and hope washing through him.That was Henderson, always prepared, just like the freaking Boy Scouts.

“Way to go, Henderson,” Steve said into the Supercom.“Now get the keys and let’s get out of here.” 

Dustin moved the last few yards to the body.Steve could see the boy flinch as he looked at what the Upside Down had done, but then Dustin steeled himself, knelt in the snow and started patting down the man’s uniform, checking the pockets.Dart stepped next to the boy and nudged him with its head.If it wasn’t coming from a monster straight out of Lovecraftian nightmare, Steve would have called the gesture affectionate.

Dustin pulled another candy bar out of his pocket and unwrapped it for Dart.Then he turned his attention back to the body, patted it again, paused, and pushed his hand into a bloody pocket.Then he sat back on his heels in the snow and raised his hand in the air.

Something silver glittered in his fist.Car keys.

The Supercom crackled again.Mike couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice.“I’ve got movement again!It’s from the garage!It’s the demogorgon!”

* * * 

Steve didn’t hesitate.He was out the door and off the porch before Mike finished talking.He sprinted across the snow, the spiked bat clutched in his hand.

The demogorgon was stomping toward Dustin.Steve angled to intercept it.The big monster wasn’t as fast as the demodog and it had further to go.He’d make it.

“Hey, you son of a bitch!” Steve yelled, waving the bat.“Why don’t you take on someone your own size!”A voice in the back of his head muttered that Wilt Chamberlain wasn’t the demogorgon’s size but Steve ignored it.

The big creature heard his shouts and it veered toward him.Its hideous flower head uncurled, displaying row after row of enormous serrated teeth.Its scream echoed across the field.Steve gripped the bat in both hands and screamed back, still running.

At the edge of his vision, he saw Dart crouch, digging its taloned feet into the snow like a lion preparing to charge._Shit_, Steve thought, _two on one_.As if one on one against a demogorgon wasn’t bad enough. 

As Steve closed the distance to the big monster, yelling at the top of his lungs, he was oddly calm.Two on one.He wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.Fair enough. 

It was blaze of glory time.All he could do, all he _must_ do, was hold out long enough for Dustin to get to the truck.

Then Steve was face to face with the demogorgon and swinging away.He got the first shot in, a blast to the thing’s chest.He ducked an enormous claw, spun, and slammed the spiked bat into its neck.The big creature actually stumbled from that one.

Steve glanced at Dart.The demodog was still next to Dustin, who was desperately unwrapping another candy bar.The hideous creature looked eagerly at the curly-haired boy.It might as well have been wagging its tail.

Steve whirled about, ducking blows.It seemed like his life span depended on the number of Three Musketeers bars left in Dustin’s pockets.Then again, if Dustin was unwrapping candy, he sure as hell wasn’t running for the truck, was he?

“Henderson!” Steve yelled, bashing away with the bat.“Quit screwing around with your pet and get to the truck!”

Dustin looked wildly about, taking in the field, the truck, the demodog, and Steve’s desperate battle.He swallowed hard and started backing toward the truck, holding the candy bar in front of him.Dart followed. 

Steve smiled grimly.That Henderson was a good kid.

Harrington dodged a sweeping blow from the demogorgon’s claw and he slammed his bat into its leg.The creature screamed at him. 

“Yeah, you want some of this?” Steve yelled back.He hit it again.Then again.And again.The big thing was reeling, jerking with every blow.Steve wound up and swung for the fences, nailing the creature right in the head.It staggered back three steps.

He couldn’t believe it.He was winning.He had the demogorgon rocking back on its heels.Screw the keys, screw the truck, and screw running away.He was going to open a frosty can of whoop ass on this thing right now.

“Say goodnight, Francine,” Steve snarled.He spun the bat in his hands, gripped it tight, and swung a fierce overhead blow with all his might.

The demogorgon caught the bat.

The huge fist wrapped around it right underneath the spiked head.It was like hitting a brick wall. 

Steve gaped at the huge creature and tried to yank the bat out of its enormous scaly paw.He might as well have tried to lift Thor’s hammer.

“Um, how about we talk this over?” he said.

The demogorgon tore the bat from his hands and sent it spinning out into the field.Its other great claw swung about and raked up Steve’s chest.He pinwheeled through the air and landed in the snow.

* * *

Steve stared at the dark winter clouds.He couldn’t recall that he’d ever laid on his back before and just looked up at the sky as snow fell.Maybe he’d done it once as a little kid, but the memory escaped him.The sky was very grey and the white snowflakes against it seemed to come right at him.It was very pretty.

He was vaguely conscious that there was something he needed to focus on right now, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

Steve heard a distant voice screaming his name, screaming at him to get up.Henderson.It was Henderson.He was a good kid.Steve liked him a lot.He was like Steve’s brother, if he’d had a brother.

That tickled at Steve’s memory and he craned his head up out of the snow as best he could.He saw Henderson off in the distance, and there was an ugly brown dog next to him.Much closer, a huge white and pink and green shape shuffled through the snow.

Steve realized it was heading his way.Man, it was ugly.Its head looked like a big scaly flower with teeth.

Henderson screamed his name again and Steve blinked.Gears started to turn in his mind._Oh shit_.

The demogorgon was coming his way and he had to get up.He had to get up but he couldn’t.He was like a boxer knocked to the mat, listening to the count, willing himself to get off the canvas before it reached ten, but his muscles refused to respond.His arms and legs had decided that now would be a really good time to take a nap.

A cone of blackness howled in from the edges of his vision.The demogorgon drew closer.

_I wonder if I’ll wake up when it starts to eat me_, Steve thought idly, and then the thought drifted away.The blackness consumed everything he could see and then he didn’t think anything at all.


	24. The Musketeer

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

Steve wouldn’t get up.Dustin called and called his name, but the older boy just lay in the snow as the demogorgon stomped toward him.

“Shit.Shit.Shit!” Dustin yelled.He looked at the truck, still a good twenty yards away, and then at the dead policeman.

The dead policeman with a gun in his holster.Dustin raced across the snow, Dart bounding eagerly at his side.The curly-haired boy dropped to his knees beside the body and fumbled for the pistol.

Dustin had seen a surprising number of dead people for a fifteen-year-old, but it didn’t make them any easier to take, especially when a demogorgon had got hold of them.He felt like he was about to retch and he tried to avoid looking at the dead man’s face.He pulled the pistol as fast as he could.

He gawked at it for a moment.This was no standard issue .38 police special.

“Smith & Wesson Model 29,” Dustin breathed.“.44 magnum.Holy shit.It’s Dirty Harry’s gun.”

He got to his feet and turned toward the demogorgon.The monstrous thing was just steps away from Harrington.

“Hey, over here, you ugly bitch!” Dustin shouted.

The demogorgon ignored him, taking another step toward its prey.

Dustin wasn’t a good shot.He knew that.But Steve was about to die and it was hero time.He had to make this one count.

He looked down the barrel and put the creature dead in his sights.He took a breath.He squeezed the trigger.The gun roared.

A puff of snow rose in the distance, well to the right of the monster and some fifty yards beyond it.As the gunshot echoed across the field, the demogorgon turned in his direction and started loping toward him.

“Jesus Christ,” Dustin snarled.“Are you kidding me?”He raised the gun again and corrected his aim.

Interdimensional horrors could move fast when they wanted to, he realized.The thing closed the distance quickly.He wasn’t going to get another chance.It was barely ten yards away when he fired again.

He was getting better.This time when he missed it was just a bit to the left.

The demogorgon’s long arm swung out and its claw slashed across the side of his head.He went sprawling.The gun flew from his hand and out into the snow.

Dustin shook his head, trying to clear his vision.Something wasn’t right.His left eye was fine and he had a good view of the snow and the mansion and the woods and the demogorgon coming straight at him.But on the right side he couldn’t see anything but blackness and stars.

That couldn’t be good.Not that it would matter for very long, because the monster from the Upside Down was almost on him.Dustin crawled away from it, trying to reach the gun, but it was so far away and he wasn’t sure where it was anyhow.

He noticed that he was dripping blood on the snow as he crawled.

He hoped Mike and El would get away.That would be something at least.Two out of four wasn’t bad.

He heard footsteps behind him and rolled onto his back.He at least wanted to be facing the thing when it got him.

It loomed over him, so terribly big.He’d never seen one this close before.The petals of its face uncurled, inches away from him, and it screamed.

Dart slammed into it like a buzzsaw made out of claws and teeth.

The demodog seemed to be everywhere at once.Its flower jaws wrapped onto the demogorgon’s head, front talons digging into the shoulders, back talons raking the stomach.The demogorgon shrieked and the two beasts from the Upside Down tumbled to the ground, slashing and biting.They rolled, kicking up huge plumes of snow as they fought.

Dustin staggered to his feet.The gun was around somewhere, but he didn’t have time.He had to get Steve.

He stumbled across the snow, shaking the fuzziness from his head, picking up speed as it cleared.He tried to wipe the blood from the side of his face and immediately jerked his hand away.Whatever was going on there, it felt pretty bad.He was glad there were no mirrors, no way to see what the thing’s claw had done.

In moments he reached Harrington’s side.He tried to ignore the blood on the older boy’s shirt.He tapped Steve’s cheek, shook him, but it was no use.His friend was breathing but he wasn’t waking up.

“Goddamnit,” Dustin muttered.He looked over at the Upside Down battling in the snow.The demogorgon had managed to get free of Dart and now the two of them were circling, stalking each other. 

“All right Harrington, time to go,” Dustin said.He grabbed his friend under the arms and started dragging him toward the truck.It was thirty yards away.

He watched the two nightmare duelists as he pulled Steve through the snow.Dart had gotten in some good licks and ochre blood streamed down the demogorgon’s chest.But it was bigger than Dart, stronger, with longer reach.The two creatures snarled and snapped at each other.

Twenty yards to go.“Good lord, Steve, how much do you weigh?” he groaned.“And you call me Roast Beef.”

Ten yards to go.The demogorgon spread its arms and howled.Dart reared up on his hind legs and did the same.The hideous things charged into a final confrontation.

Dustin was at the truck.“Stay with me, buddy,” he told Steve, laying him in the snow next to the vehicle.Dustin opened a rear door, ready to pull Steve inside, and then a sharp yelp echoed across the field.The sounds of battle stopped.

Dustin ducked down behind the truck and then carefully peeked over the hood.

The demogorgon tossed Dart’s body into the snow.

“No,” Dustin whispered.“Oh no.”

D’artagnan was a monstrous, alien entity from another dimension and he killed people and ate cats.But in his own way he was Dustin’s friend, and he had saved Dustin’s life. 

Dustin realized he was crying from his good eye.

The demogorgon looked over at the truck and Dustin’s heart went cold.He ducked down behind the Blazer’s big tire.He peered underneath the chassis.The demogorgon’s feet started moving.They were moving toward him.

“Shit,” he whispered.“Shit, shit, shit.”He had to get Steve inside the truck, then himself, then lock the doors, then drive away.There was no time.There was no way.

The demogorgon came closer.

A gun roared, the blast even louder than the Smith & Wesson.It had come from the mansion.The sound echoed across the field and out over the river. 

The demogorgon stopped and turned.It started loping towards the porch.

Dustin realized he’d been holding his breath and he let it out slowly. 

That gunshot could only mean one thing. Mike Wheeler was off the bench and into the game in full-on Paladin mode.

Dustin hoped the shotgun had worked, that he hadn’t just heard the sound of a devastating backfire. But one way or another, Mike had given him time.

Dustin returned to the rear of the truck, grabbed Steve under the arms, and carefully pulled the young man inside.Then he clambered out and shut the door.Now he should climb into the front seat and…

He should climb into the front seat and drive away.

Wasn’t that right?He looked at the mansion.He couldn’t see the demogorgon anywhere.He looked at Steve lying in the back of the truck. 

What had he told Mike, way back at the Lab?First rule of horror movies.If you get away from the bad guy, don’t go back and try to save people.Run for it.Going back gets you killed.

If he left now, he could save Steve and they could regroup with the Byers and they could all come back and fight the demogorgon together. 

If he left now, Mike and El would almost certainly die.

He looked at Steve again.The older boy was breathing and resting peacefully. Dustin scanned the field.The gun should be right about _there_. 

“Stay safe, Steve,” Dustin told his friend.“I’ll come back for you as soon as I can.” 

He shook his head and sighed.Now he knew why people always went back in horror movies.

His head hurt. As he stumbled across the snow toward the gun, he dabbed again at his face.With only one eye, he wouldn’t have any depth perception.It would make it hard to aim.What the hell, it’s not like he could aim worth a damn even when he had two eyes.

The gun was right where Dustin expected it.He knelt and pulled it free.A wave of dizziness washed over him.More stars shot through the darkness in the right half of his vision.He settled onto his side in the snow.

_I’m probably not that far away from Dart_, he thought._My poor brave Dart_.

El and Mike were in trouble but he was so tired.He’d help them.He would.He just wanted to rest for a little bit.

Just a little bit.


	25. The Words

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

El and Mike watched from the library.

It had two big banks of windows and they could see the entire field in front of the house.They could see the woods and the garage and the truck and the river.It was a good place for watching.

The library was Eleven’s favorite room in the mansion.It hadn’t been before.Eleven used to like the master bedroom because it looked over the edge of the cliff and down at the river.When she ran away from school, she liked to sit in front of the windows there and stare at the water and dream.

Now the library would forever be her favorite, because that was the room where she learned that Mike Wheeler still loved her.That was where Mike told her about all the days that he loved her – seven hundred and seventy-one days, including today.He’d said _I love you_ at least ten times, and she’d been so flustered and happy and relieved and overwhelmed and _in love_ that she couldn’t do anything but cry and say his name.

She hadn’t said _I love you_ back.

Mike spoke well.When he said _I love you_ it sounded pretty.It sounded smart and like poetry and sometimes it made her giggle, because his language could lead her all around the room and then back to where he was waiting.

El wanted it to be like that when she said _I love you_ to him.Language was so new though, she still had to stop and think when she wanted to say something.Often it didn’t come out quite right.Mike never, ever teased her about that or made her feel bad and he patiently, lovingly – there was that word again – helped her through it.

She wanted to tell him she loved him so much, but she was worried that it might come out _I_ _love you_, just three words, and that was something a child could say.

El tried to show him she loved him.She tried after his beautiful confession, after she cried and he cried, after they kissed and held each other and she stared at him with no words. 

Mike had smiled at her and regretfully said they should go back to Dustin and Steve.He’d turned toward the door and it was then she took his hand.He was surprised and even more surprised when her other hand gently tugged at his shirt and pulled him toward her. 

When he was standing in front of her, she touched his shirt with her slender fingers, arranging it, smoothing his pockets and making sure his buttons were all in a line.It was such a little thing but it felt terribly intimate in a way that sped her heartbeat.

She looked into his eyes and then at the floor and she asked him shyly if maybe they could stay just a little while longer.Her fingers kept lightly tugging at his sleeve.A smile crossed his face and the smile was so big and full of happiness, she felt a little thrill that she could make him feel that way.

I think we can stay a little longer, he said to her.

Then it had been _wow_.The thought of those kisses made her shiver and she couldn’t remember how they made it to the couch.

She’d worked open the buttons at the top of his shirt and the feel of his skin under her fingers started warm, melting feelings inside her.His hand slid under her blouse and his fingers stroked her stomach and her side and left trails of fire on her skin.They didn’t move their hands too far, because that was overwhelming and they weren’t sure they were ready, but when Mike’s fingers gently stroked up her ribcage, further than they’d ever been, her breath caught and she thought that perhaps she’d be ready sometime _very_ soon.

She felt feverish, the blood pounding in her ears, and the flush she saw on Mike’s face was surely burning just as bright on her own.Mike’s eyes seemed darker, clouded with a feeling whose name she didn’t know.Whatever it was, it coursed through her too.It was liquid and tingling and delicious and at times somehow frustrating and it made her ache. She wasn’t conscious of anything then but his hands and her hands, and his lips and her lips, and their bodies pressed against each other.

Then Dustin had knocked at the door.She and Mike were rearranging clothes and trying to smooth hair into place and she was conscious that her lips were amazingly swollen.Mike had almost bruised them with his urgency and she realized with a happy flip-flop in her stomach that she’d done the same to him.She could see the proof of her love right there on his face.

Dustin had teased them, as friends will do, and that had been all right.At one point though he’d seemed annoyed and she’d explained patiently that she would never feel bad about kissing Mike.She remembered Mike being rather smugly pleased about that and it still made her smile.

She still hadn’t told Mike _I love you_.She hadn’t found the words.

She worried she was out of time.

* * *

El and Mike watched from the library.

El wanted to hold Mike, but she knew she shouldn’t.Downstairs, she’d pressed against him, both her hands on his arm, and she rested her chin against his shoulder at every opportunity.She was so thrilled to be able to touch him again and she wanted to get as much of that as she could.

But things were serious now.Their lives rested on Dustin’s mission and they needed to keep watch.

They watched Dustin go into the snow.He was very brave, El thought. 

He was her friend. 

She didn’t know Dustin the way she knew Mike – she didn’t know anyone the way she knew Mike – but the stocky boy had been there for her from that very first night in the rain.He’d never been suspicious of her, like Lucas, and he was the first to think her powers were amazing instead of scary.He had welcomed her into the Party and he’d come to Maine with Mike to save her.

She knew Mike loved the curly-haired boy enough to jump off a cliff for him.That by itself was enough to secure Dustin a place in her heart, but he was sweet and kind too.

She hoped he’d be okay.

The Supercom crackled and Steve asked for a report.Mike told him it was all clear.

Then the mission unfolded on the snow below them.

El’s stomach knotted with tension when Dustin crouched by the policeman.She gasped in fear when Dart crawled from under the porch.She hugged Mike with relief when it turned out Dustin was right and Dart didn’t hurt him.

Hope welled up when Dustin found the keys, and then she looked at the garage.

“Mike,” she gasped.“The demogorgon!”

Mike looked where she was pointing and he raised the Supercom.There was panic in his voice.“I’ve got movement again!It’s from the garage!It’s the demogorgon!”

El watched Steve leap from the porch before Mike finished talking.

El didn’t know Steve very well. 

She knew most girls thought he was handsome, and they said he had nice hair, and she guessed she agreed.He wasn’t as handsome as Mike, of course, but she thought he might be as handsome as Ralph Macchio. 

It seemed like Steve was around a lot when things went wrong and the Upside Down threatened the world.For a while El had wondered if that had something to do with his job, which was enough to make her decide she would never, ever serve ice cream at the mall.After a while, she realized he was around because he cared. 

She didn’t know Steve very well, but as far as she could tell he was the opposite of Papa.Papa exploited children.Steve defended them.Papa tormented children.Steve protected them.Papa was a bad man who harmed children but pretended to love them.Steve was a good man who helped children but pretended he was annoyed by them. 

When you looked through the pretending, Papa hurt children and Steve Harrington saved them.

She didn’t know Steve very well, but she hoped he’d be okay.

El and Mike watched Steve charge across the snow.They flinched when the demogorgon swung its claws and they cheered when Steve smashed the monster with his bat again and again.

El sobbed when the creature ripped the bat from Steve’s hands and slashed him down.

“Goddamnit,” Mike hissed.He fumbled in his pocket for shells and started loading the shotgun.

“Mike,” El whispered.She looked anxiously at the silver weapon in his hands.

“I know,” he said.The gun was fully loaded, five shells in the magazine.“But I think this constitutes an emergency.” 

They turned to go downstairs but then they paused, because Dustin was yelling at the demogorgon and waving the policeman’s gun.The creature charged him and Dustin fired.

Dustin really was a bad shot.

El moaned when the demogorgon clawed the boy and he fell to the ground. Dustin crawled across the snow and Mike pounded his hand against the window, shouting Dustin’s name. 

They turned again to go and then they stopped because Dart went crazy.

El and Mike watched the two monsters battle in the snow.They watched Dustin pull Steve across the field to the truck.They watched the demogorgon toss Dart’s body aside and then things went very still.

The demogorgon crouched, seeming to sniff the air.It straightened and looked about.It looked at the truck.It took a step toward it, seeming almost curious, unsure if there was prey there or not.

El gripped the knife at her hip, knowing it would be little use against the huge creature.Mike put his hand over hers.

“No,” he said, gently but urgently.“We’ll never make it in time.” Instead he pulled the window open.A blast of winter air rushed into the library.

“Mike,” El whispered.“What are you doing?”

“Diversion,” he told her.He sat on the window sill and swung a leg out onto the roof of the wraparound porch.He tapped the shotgun.“I really hope this thing works.”

“Mike, no,” she gasped.He meant to fire the shotgun and draw the demogorgon away.They were in a crisis and he was going to play the Paladin, the way he always did.

“Mike, please don’t,” she whimpered.“There must be something else.”

“There’s no time, El,” he said and his voice was still gentle. 

The demogorgon started walking toward the truck.

El watched as Mike swallowed hard and steeled himself for what he was about to do.It seemed he was always jumping off cliffs. 

* * *

El stepped into her mind.

The grey wall loomed in front of her.

She reached deep for the power inside her.She needed the strands. A red one for strength. A grey one for shields.Three yellow ones for shaping.A host of pink and blue ones that were Mike and the shotgun and the shells and the powder inside them. 

She needed to twist the strands together in her mind and create a barrier around the gun.If it backfired, the wall of force she wove would protect Mike from the blast.

She directed her power against the wall, using the secrets Papa taught her.In her head she hammered it with her fists, the way she’d done so many times since that day in July.The wall didn’t yield. 

Then she reached into the depths of her soul and she filled her hands with hate and rage andsuffering, the way Kali had taught her.In her mind, her hands blazed with searing green fire and she turned the flames against the wall.She burned the awful barrier with a heart of fury.

This wasn’t for her now.This was for Mike.

When the fire died, the wall was still there.It looked the same as it ever had. The strands were trapped behind it, out of reach.

_Please_, she begged it._Please, I love him_.

The wall didn’t answer.

* * *

She stepped back into the world, tears in her eyes.She saw Mike take one last deep breath and nod, his spirit ready.

“Mike!” she cried.

He paused in the window sill, one foot on the porch roof, one on the library floor.His eyes met hers.She swallowed, terrified, her heart aching.Then she told him.

“I love you.”

Three little words.Like a child could say.

It was all she had.

When he smiled at her, she knew it was all he needed.

“I love you,” he told her. 

He swung out onto the roof.“Don’t worry, El.I’ll be back.I’m not losing you.Not ever again.”

“No,” she said, “No, you won’t.Not ever.I’ll always be here, Mike.”

The demogorgon was almost at the truck.Mike stepped away from the window and pointed the shotgun at the sky.

“I love you, Mike,” she said.“I love you!”

The gun shook in his hand.She could see on his face that he was scared.

“I love you!” she sobbed.“Mike, I love you!”

He pulled the trigger.


	26. The Wall

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

The shotgun roared.Mike stumbled backward and collapsed on the roof.

“Mike!”El cried.“Mike!Are you okay?”

She leaned out the window, reaching for him, pulling at his shoulders and helping him sit up.She scanned him desperately, looking for blood, burns.He’d dropped the shotgun and was clutching his right hand.His hand, she had to see…

He winced and shook his fingers, flexing them against the numbness.

“Okay,” he said, “firing a shotgun with one hand?Not recommended.”

She sobbed with relief and hugged him through the window.Then she helped him stand up before angrily shaking her finger at him.

“Don’t do that again! Don’t ever scare me like that again!”Then she wrapped her arms around him and cried into his shirt.

“It’s okay,” Mike murmured.He kissed her forehead.“I’m okay.”He looked out toward the field.

The demogorgon was loping across the snow toward the mansion.

“It worked!”Mike gasped.“It worked!The demogorgon’s coming here!”

Then his eyes widened.“Shit!The demogorgon’s coming here!El, we have to get downstairs - we have to light the firework trap before that thing gets through the door!”

He picked up the shotgun and tried to step through the window.El helped him, but his foot caught on the sill and they both tumbled inside to the floor.Mike found himself lying on top of El, looking into her eyes, his hips and pelvis pressed against hers.

_This is usually the part where I wake up_, he thought and when her eyes widened, he realized he’d said it out loud.Blushing furiously, he rolled off her and helped her up.She straightened her clothes, a bit flustered, and then her gaze went to the window and she gasped.

“Mike, it’s almost here!”

He turned.The demogorgon was steps away from the porch.“Let’s get down there,” he said.“The door should hold long enough for us to set off the trap and blow that thing to hell.Do you still have your li—?”

He swallowed the last word as the demogorgon leaped impossibly high in the air, slammed two huge claws into the roof, and pulled itself up.

“Oh no,” El breathed.

“I didn’t know they could do that,” said Mike.

The creature stomped to the window, stuck its head through, and for a moment just regarded them.Then its flower jaws opened and it roared.

“Run!”Mike shouted.As El raced for the door, he chambered a round in the shotgun and fired.

Next to the window, a beautiful antique nautical chart disintegrated in a shower of paper and glass.

_Goddamn_, Mike thought, _I’m as bad as Dustin_.

The wood frame of the window snapped and splintered as the demogorgon pushed its way through.Mike ran for the hallway.

There was a china cabinet in the hall next to the library door.Mike put his back against it and shoved, tumbling it across the door and blocking the path.Centuries old porcelain shattered across the oak floorboards.

Mike couldn’t help wincing at the damage he was doing._Hell with it_, he thought._Compared to the way we totaled Starcourt, this is chump change_.

The demogorgon was at the library door, snarling.Mike ran down the stairs two and three at a time as the big beast ripped the cabinet out of the way.

Mike reached the ground floor and raced across the living room.El was at the door, pushing furniture out of the way to clear a path for him.“Hurry, Mike!” she called.“It’s coming!”

“Go!” he shouted.“Get outside!There’s no way we’ll catch it in the trap now!”She opened the door and he was beside her and they both ran, leaping off the porch and sprinting across the snow.The demogorgon snapped and snarled behind them, just yards away.

“The garage,” El said, “there’s more gasoline in there!”

They angled toward the old building, their feet pounding the snow.Mike chambered another round and half turned, firing from the hip as he ran.The shot went wide but the demogorgon paused for a second, earning them a few precious yards.

El reached the garage, opened the door and slipped inside, Mike right behind her.They slammed the door closed.

“Is there anything to block it?” Mike asked and then the demogorgon hit the door at full speed, blasting it right off its hinges.Mike and El stumbled away as the door fell and they backed against the far wall of the garage.The thing from the Upside Down squeezed its huge bulk into the room and howled as it moved toward them.

“Get behind me El!”Mike yelled.He stepped toward the thing, raising the shotgun, but the demogorgon was too fast.It caught him in the face with a backhand swing and the shotgun tumbled from his hands.He fell to the ground.

The monster advanced on Mike, its claws outstretched, and the black-haired boy scrambled backward across the floor on heels and elbows.Then he felt the garage wall against his back and there was nowhere else to go.

The demogorgon slammed its claws against the wall on either side of Mike’s head, trapping him between its arms.Its flower petal mouth unfurled and he could feel its hot breath on his face.

* * *

As the demogorgon loomed over Mike, Eleven felt the world ending.She couldn’t lose him again.She wouldn’t lose him again.

She stepped into her mind.

The grey wall waited for her.

_He’s going to die_, she said._Please let me pass_.

The wall didn’t answer.She hadn’t really expected it to.

_Okay_, she told the wall._I guess we’ll do this the hard way_.

She reached into her soul, pushing deeper than she ever had.Not even Kali had let her go so far.She plunged her hands into the blackest parts of her spirit.She rooted through the disaster of her life and filled her hands with the pain of a tortured child.The shame of a retard.The fury of a lab experiment set free into an alien world.

In her mind, her hands filled with blazing fire that was first green, then blue, then purple.

She reached into her soul one more time and she found her utter hatred of anything that had ever hurt the boy she loved.

The fire in her hands burned black as midnight.

She turned the blaze against the wall. The flames washed and licked over the hideous grey surface.She willed the fire hotter, stronger.It spilled from her hands like a bonfire of darkness and even in her mind the blood streamed from her nose and ears.

It was Mike.It was his life or death.If it wasn’t now, it wasn’t ever.

She drew on every ounce of rage and fear and hatred that darkened her life and she screamed and the black inferno detonated like the negative of an atomic bomb.

The flames died.

There was a crack in the wall. 

As El watched, a ripple passed over the barrier like a wave and the crack disappeared.The wall stood silent and smooth and sheer and it stretched into forever.

El collapsed to her knees in front of it and sobbed.

* * *

Eleven stepped back into the world. 

There was nothing.After all this time, all the days since that one in July, she was still an empty battery.Her powers were gone, now and maybe forever.

She wasn’t a superhero.She was just some girl.

A girl who the most wonderful boy in the world had loved for seven hundred and seventy-one days and counting.

A girl who was brave and a fighter and who sacrificed herself for the people she loved.

A girl who kicked Upside Down ass for three years in a row and wasn’t about to stop now.

El grabbed the shotgun from the floor and chambered a round.

The demogorgon bit into Mike’s shoulder. Her beautiful boy screamed in agony, pushing futilely against the monster’s slick skin.El jammed the shotgun barrel into the creature’s side.

“Get away from my boyfriend,” she hissed.

The gun kicked and blew the thing across the room in an explosion of ochre blood.

The demogorgon lay stunned for a moment.Then it clambered back to its feet and roared. 

El chambered another round and fired, blasting the creature back into the wall in a hail of blood and splinters.

The demogorgon lay on the ground, twitching.Its paws scraped futilely at the earth.Then it snarled.It got up again, staggering, almost losing its balance.It spread its arms, the claws sharp and gleaming.

El worked the shotgun one more time and felt something sink inside her.The sound was wrong, the feel was wrong, not like before.Icy needles of fear prickled her spine as she brought the silver weapon up and squeezed the trigger.

_Click_.

She gasped, trying to chamber another round, knowing that she was out and it was useless.

“Close your eyes, Mike,” she whispered.

The demogorgon screamed.

“Do you feel lucky, punk?” Dustin said, and he stepped into the garage and fired Dirty Harry’s gun point blank into the thing’s head.

The demogorgon collapsed, hitting the ground with a squishy thump.It thrashed, trying to get its footing, its glittering claws dragging long scraping cuts into the dirt.Somehow, after everything they’d thrown at it, the thing was still alive.

“That was for me and Steve and El and Mike,” Dustin told the demogorgon.He cocked the gun again.“And this is for Dart, you son of a bitch.”

He emptied the gun, round after round, shattering the thing’s body with hammer blows.The gun finally clicked empty and the demogorgon lay still.

Its body started to disintegrate, turning into smoke and ash the way Upside Down things did when they died in the world.

Dustin leaned over panting, hands on his knees.“Goddamn,” he said, “I guess even I can’t miss from this range.”

El threw down the shotgun and ran to Mike’s side.She hugged him and kissed his face and cried and tried to see the wound on his shoulder, all at once.He hugged her against him with his good arm and kissed her lips and kissed her tears.

Then Dustin was kneeling next to them, and Mike clasped his friend’s hand and El hugged the curly-haired boy and then Dustin wrapped them both in his arms.A memory filled El’s mind, that day at the quarry when they were twelve years old and they had hugged like this, the three of them, and El had felt like she belonged in the world for the first time in her life.

“It’s okay,” she said, holding them both tightly and wanting to never let go. “Everything’s going to be okay.”


	27. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter turned out to be quite long, so I split it in two. However, everything’s written now and I’m just doing last edits. This little tale should be complete in the next few days.

**Bath, Maine - Whateley Mansion**   
**Monday, December 16, 1985**

They walked toward the truck in the falling snow.

“Dustin, your eye…” Eleven said.

The stocky boy dabbed at it.“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” he asked.

The three of them stopped and Dustin let Mike and El take a closer look.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Mike said.“It doesn’t look great.But I think if we get you to a doctor you might be okay.Can you see out of it?”

“No,” Dustin admitted.“But I think it’s getting better.Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big light blur.”

El and Mike nodded.Then Mike frowned.“Wait a minute.That’s from _Return of the Jedi_.Han says it when they’re being taken to the Sarlacc pit.”

Dustin shrugged.“I kept trying to tell you guys in the car - that’s a great movie.I just never expected it to be personally relevant.”

They continued toward the truck.Dustin pointed to a spot near the mansion.“You know, you ran of the house just in time.I was about to take a nap in the snow there and then you came flying out the door.Thirty more seconds and I’d have been in dreamland.”He grimaced.“I almost closed my eyes anyway.I was so tired.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Mike said.“You saved us.”

“You saved me,” Dustin said.The stocky boy looked thoughtful.“I guess we all saved each other.”

They reached the truck and opened the back door.Steve blinked awake as the cold wind rushed inside.

“Henderson?” he muttered.“What happened to your eye?”

“Boating accident,” Dustin said, but he kept his voice soft and there was no sting in his sarcasm.“How are you doing, buddy?”

Steve groaned and sat up.He pressed his hand against his chest.“I’ve felt better.”His eyes went to Mike and El.The young teens looked tired but relaxed and somehow at peace.“Did we win?” Steve asked.

“We won,” said Dustin.“Thanks to you, Steve.Thanks to all of us.”

Steve slid out of the truck.“Do you still have the keys?I suppose we’d better get back to the Byers.”

“I’ve got them,” Dustin said.“But can you guys give me a few minutes?There’s something I want to do before we go.”

* * *

The four of them stood in the snow where Dart had fought the demogorgon.There was nothing there.

“The bodies disintegrate when they die, right?” Mike said.

“Yes,” said El.“The demogorgons go fast.I don’t know how long a demodog takes.”

“Definitely less then twelve hours,” Steve said.

Mike looked at him curiously.“How do you know that?”

Steve and Dustin exchanged guilty looks.Dustin cleared his throat.“Let’s just say there wasn’t much left of the one we put in Will’s fridge when his mom opened it the next morning.”

“Enough for her to be pretty mad though,” Steve muttered.

“Ah,” said Mike.“But there should at least be something left?Some kind of ash?”He looked at El.She shrugged.

“Maybe,” said Dustin.“Or maybe Dart is alive and he crawled away.There’s been so much snow falling it would have covered the ash or the tracks or all of it.”

They were all quiet for a moment.

“I’d like to think he’s still alive,” Mike said.

“Me too,” said Dustin.“He saved my life.He was… my friend.”

Dustin looked out at the woods.Was that a flicker of green and brown he saw among the black trees?He couldn’t be sure.It could have been a trick of the light.

“We may never know what happened to him,” Mike sighed.The four of them started back toward the truck.

“Just in case,” Dustin said, “El, if you and the Byers ever get a cat, you might want to keep it inside.”

* * *

**Bath, Maine - Bath Regional Hospital**   
**Tuesday, December 17, 1985**

They all stood around Dustin’s hospital bed.Will had balloons.Jonathan had Three Musketeers bars.

“They only want to keep you overnight for observation,” Joyce told the stocky boy.“So don’t worry.We’ll be back to pick you up in the morning.I called your mother, she’s getting a plane ticket and should be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“But my eye’s going to be okay?” Dustin asked.He’d been under anesthesia while the doctors worked and he was still feeling a bit groggy.

“You’ll be fine,” Mike assured him.“You’re just going to have a really awesome scar.It’ll be badass.”

Steve clapped his young friend on the shoulder.“Don’t worry.Chicks dig scars.It gives you an air of mystery.”

Dustin looked quickly at El.“Girls will think it’s cool?”

She smiled.“Bitchin.”

* * *

**Bath, Maine - Bath Police Department**   
**Wednesday, December 18, 1985**

Steve sat down across the desk from Bath’s chief of police.He winced as the movement strained the half-healed cuts on his chest.He was quiet as the chief finished reading the report.

“Sounds like you and your friends had a rough time of it,” the man said.Steve wondered if there was some rule that small town police chiefs had to be big men with bristly mustaches.Christ, this guy could be Jim Hopper’s long lost brother.

“But let me just make sure I’ve got all the facts right,” the chief said.“You and your friends are from out of town and you didn’t realize the museum was closed.So you were hanging out up there looking around when…” the chief checked the report, “a _mountain lion_ suddenly attacked you.”

“That’s right,” Steve said.

“The first mountain lion seen in Maine since 1938,” the chief noted.

“Sir?”

“There aren’t any mountain lions in Maine, son.”

Steve swallowed.“He probably got lost.”

The man stared at him for a while.Steve started to sweat.Holy shit, the guy really was just like Jim Hopper. 

“At any rate,” the chief finally continued, “this… mountain lion… attacked you and your friends.You broke into the museum to get away from it, boarded up all the windows, requisitioned yourselves a shotgun and set a trap made out of fireworks and gasoline.You also placed a call to 911.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But the mountain lion got into the house anyway by…” the chief checked the report again and raised his eyebrows, “_breaking in through a second story window_.It chased you and your friends outside, scratched your chest, bit your buddy on the shoulder, and clawed your other friend in the eye.”

“That’s right,” said Steve.

“Then it killed my officer and chased you and your friends into the garage, where you shot at it and scared it away.”

“That’s right, sir,” Steve confirmed.“It ran right off into the woods.”

The man stared at him again.Steve felt a desperate urge to confess to every bad thing he’d ever done, including trying to make out with Nancy Wheeler when she really should have been studying, but he dug his fingernails into his palms and kept quiet.Finally the chief smiled but the smile didn’t go to his eyes.“Well, I guess everything’s in order then,” the chief said.“My men agree it was definitely some kind of wild animal attack.”

Relieved, Steve started to get out of his chair.The chief held up a restraining finger and Steve sank back down.

“There’s just one more thing, son.Aside from the fact that this mountain lion apparently came in from Canada on a tourist visa, could you help me figure out how it ripped the hood off your car and scattered your engine all over the snow?”

“Excuse me?” Steve asked.He swallowed hard.

“Son, I’m saying that if there’s anything you want to add to your bullshit story, now would be a good time.”

Steve looked down at his hands.He cleared his throat.“It was a _really big_ mountain lion.”


	28. The Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the last and now this little tale is done. I hope you liked it.
> 
> Now that it’s all posted, I’ll probably go back and do a little clean up. My natural writing style might best be described as “overwrought”, so I need to edit myself ruthlessly to get back to a reasonable place. I’ve been writing and posting pretty quickly so I didn’t always have time to rein myself in on every chapter. There may be some wording changes, but the story won’t change.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read, and a special thanks to those who left kudos and comments. It may not always have been obvious, but the comments influenced where I took the story and in my opinion made it better.
> 
> Now, it feels like ST4 is still some way off, and I still miss El and Mike and the rest of the gang, so I guess I’ll go write another one.

**Bath, Maine - The Byers House**   
**Wednesday, December 25, 1985**

It was Eleven’s best Christmas yet.

The Wheelers were there.Mike’s family had always planned to have Christmas with the Byers, but they’d come early once they learned of Mike’s “animal attack.”When Karen Wheeler saw her son’s bandaged shoulder, she launched into a tirade about how the police or the park service should _do something_, especially when three young children were savagely mauled. 

Dustin leaned over to Mike and said, “Children?Steve’s nineteen.”Mike shushed him.

Mrs. Henderson was there also.She’d been in hysterics over Dustin’s injury but the curly-haired boy calmed her down with his usual mix of smooth self-assurance, gentle affection, and blatant lies.

“I thought you were going to Utah?” she said at one point, bewildered.

“Us too,” Dustin said.“Can you believe we drove all the way to the ocean before we realized Utah is _west_ of Indiana?I mean, I feel pretty silly.”

The Byers were there of course, and Mike and Dustin and Steve.Before the Wheelers and Mrs. Henderson arrived, they’d all decorated the house together for the holidays.Will wryly noted that it was nice to hang Christmas lights without writing letters under them. 

They decided that El should hang the ornaments.It hurt Mike to lift his arm, and Steve winced every time he stretched, and the bandage on Dustin’s eye played havoc with his depth perception, so the stocky boy kept dropping the ornaments on the floor or shoving them way too deep in the tree. 

They took turns handing El ornaments and then laughing and joking as they debated where each one should go.Every time Mike handed El an ornament, he kissed her hand.The boys teased him mercilessly but he ignored them.Joyce told him it was sweet.Eleven just glowed with love.

_Mike_.

He made this Eleven’s best Christmas.She couldn’t wait for the next one with him, and the one after that, and the one after that, for as many years as she could imagine.

* * *

Then there were the presents.There were sweaters and D&D books and video games for the boys.El got make-up and hairbrushes and a pretty blouse, which she loved, and two books on ships and sailing that she had to restrain herself from reading _right now_.

Jonathan burst out laughing when he unwrapped his present from Steve - a new Louisville Slugger and a box of nails. Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Henderson exchanged confused looks.“We keep taking his,” Steve explained.

The Party all presented Steve’s gift, a mug that read “World’s Best Babysitter.”After he opened it, they all tried to hug him at once and he winced at the strain it put on his cuts.He wrapped his arms around them just the same.

Will’s gift to El was a compass.“I know you sometimes feel like you have to leave,” the quiet boy told her.“This is so you can always find your way back home.”

El had gifts for Mike and Dustin.Will had helped her pick them.They’d cost all of her saved allowance plus extra borrowed from Jonathan, but she’d wanted to get them very badly.They were old books, finely bound, with beautiful pictures.

Dustin’s was _The Three Musketeers_.“The main character’s name is D’artagnan,” El explained to him, just in case he didn’t know.Dustin held it like a treasure.

Mike’s was _The Song of Roland_.He looked at it and then her, awestruck.“It’s about a Paladin,” she said.

Then the presents seemed to be done and everyone started to clean up.“Wait,” Eleven said, “there’s one more left.” 

It was big and carefully wrapped in shiny red paper with a green bow.She couldn’t find any name on it.She realized that the Wheelers and the Byers and the Hendersons and Steve were all smiling at her.

“That’s for you,” Mike said. 

When it was unwrapped, she stared at it, unable to speak.Mike sat down next to her.

“It’s a ham radio,” he told her.“Will and Dustin and I will help you put it together.”

“Mike,” she whispered.

“It has really good range,” he said.“And Dustin is going to let me use Cerebro.I’ll talk to you every night.Also, your mom went to the school and got another set of your textbooks from the counselor.I’ll take them home with me.I’ll have a copy and you’ll have a copy and I’ll be able to help you with your classes every day, until you’re caught up.”

“Mike,” she whispered again and she kissed him.

She tried to fill the kiss with all the love in her heart.

It went on for a very long time.

After a while, Karen and Nancy coughed and Jonathan started to fidget.Mrs. Henderson giggled nervously.When Mike’s father loudly cleared his throat, Joyce stepped forward and tapped the couple on the shoulders.

“Okay, you two,” she said, gently but firmly.“You should save some of that for later.”

* * *

In the afternoon, Mike and Eleven walked along the Kennebec River and then the waterfront.It was cold but the sun was bright and the day was pretty. 

They sat on a bench near the docks, watching the ships and the waves and the slowly drifting clouds.El half-turned to Mike and gently stroked his hair.He sighed and seemed content.

A question had been gnawing at her and she decided now was as good a time as any to ask it.

“Mike,” she said, “do you remember back at the mansion?In the library?You asked me about… other guys?”

“Ah,” Mike said.“That.Right.”His contentment dropped away and he shifted awkwardly.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.She studied his face, genuinely confused.

“Ha!” he said, but it didn’t sound to El like he was laughing.“I thought…”He sighed.“I thought that maybe you stopped talking to me and didn’t want me to write to you because you’d found someone else.”

“Someone else?”She really found the concept baffling.

“Another guy.”He laughed that same way again, like he didn’t really think anything was funny.“I had this image that you’d met a bad boy at school and you liked him.”

“Bad boy?” she wondered.She knew what “bad” meant and “boy” meant, but words could take on different meanings when you put them together and this felt like one of those times.

“Um, yeah, a bad boy.You know, leather jacket, ripped jeans.A guy who breaks the rules, causes trouble, gets into fights.He doesn’t respect authority and does what he wants. Kind of an outlaw.Like Han Solo from _Star Wars_.”

“Oh,” she said, seeing it now.

“Girls seem to like bad boys,” Mike explained.“They’re usually not so into guys like me.You know, nice guys in button-down shirts who are friends with the teachers.I was… afraid... I guess, that maybe you got tired of being with someone so… square.”He shrugged, embarrassed.

El nodded.“I understand.Yes.I like bad boys.”

Mike looked at her in shock.She could literally see him deflate. 

She smiled and laid her hand on his.

“Mike,” she said softly, “You hid me from your parents.You ran from the government.You ignored _my father_ when he told you to stay out of the tunnels on Halloween.”She scooted closer to him on the bench.“You skipped school, you lied to your parents, and you drove twelve hundred miles so you could fight at my side.”

El put her hand on Mike’s thigh and he drew a sharp breath. She leaned in, nuzzling his neck and blowing on it softly.“You break the rules all the time,” she whispered.She kissed him on the neck, her lips opening so she could flick lightly at his pulse with her tongue.He froze, as if afraid to move. A heat was growing inside her and she felt ridiculously aggressive and she loved the way Mike was letting her take the lead.

Her mouth drifted up to his ear and she licked gently at its shell-like folds.He gave a little gasp.Her hand moved further up his thigh. “You’re a bad boy, Mike,” she murmured.

Now he moved, urgently, his lips meeting hers, his hands gripping her waist, and El swallowed a happy little giggle knowing that Mike was hers, hers, hers.

When Mike pulled back he smiled sheepishly but she could tell he was also feeling insanely proud.“Bad boy, huh?” he asked.

“Bad boy,” she confirmed. 

“I guess I should get a leather jacket and some ripped jeans,” he joked.

She shook her head and reached out to straighten his collar, which had gotten a bit disarrayed from her earlier… enthusiasm.“I like the way you dress,” she said.“I get the nice guy and the bad boy, all at once.I’m a lucky girl.” 

He didn’t seem to know what to say, so he kissed her again, which El thought was a very good idea.

* * *

They walked back to the house, arm in arm.El snuggled against Mike, reveling in the feel of him beside her.Sometimes she went onto her tiptoes to kiss him, because she loved him and she wanted to prove to herself that this was real, that he was really there.

He would leave soon, of course, but she knew now that she would speak to him every single day while he was gone.She would count the days until he came back.

She would count the days, just like he did.

She remembered his words in the library and the joy of them swept over her.She let go of Mike’s arm and kissed his cheek and then she did pirouettes in the snow.She spun, her father’s old jacket whipping around her, her curls bouncing on her shoulders.She skipped back to Mike, giggling.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked, laughing and delighted.

El took his hand.“I counted.You’ve loved me and I’ve loved you for seven hundred and eighty days.”

“That’s right,” Mike agreed.He pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her waist, and she melted into his kiss.She was breathless when it ended.

The boy she loved looked into her eyes. He saw her soul and, in that moment, she saw his too.She knew then, without any doubt, that Mike Wheeler thought she was special. 

Mike Wheeler thought she was perfect.

“How many more days will you love me, Mike?” she whispered.

He kissed her again. 

“All of them.”


End file.
